by David Cohen

tags:  ecology  community  activism 

I just launched a project to change the world: People all over the world plant wheatgrass seeds which I provide and the growth is documented digitally. The digital images are then sent back to me and then placed together to form a “virtual field”  that will be seen both online and printed in the next issue of Artworld Digest Magazine. The components of the actual field exist in many separate places at once; sort of a diaspora of plants.
 
The plants can be grown freely in any configuration the planter chooses and the images can express the individuality of the grower as well. Planters are also free to choose to grow whatever seeds they choose. The three criteria are that the plants must be 1) non-spreading, 2) non-invasive and 3) grown legally.
 
When a person participates by planting the seed they become connected to a collective group of artists and activists. There are opportunities to meet potential collaborators and work creatively on other projects separate from the Seed Project. The seed becomes symbolic of these new collectives. My intention is to provide a structure where supportive relationships can grow. One structural component of the project is that participants will be invited to Seed Parties, events for planters to meet, network and form new creative relationships.
 
This project fosters the creative act and encourages a widening cultural identification with artists, encompassing all people who have creative power. The Seed Project turns on the basic act of creating, in this case the organic energy of life. The outgrowth will be a heightened awareness of changes in our environment, our participation in power, as well as a growing community of artists.
 
“The Seed Project will conceptually collapse the physical space that separates people in the world to imagine a virtual field growing together, but the motivating goal is a growing community of artists, ideas and resources which will be linked and shared. A seed is a symbol of the incredible power to create and redefine the world that we all have, but are particularly aware of as artists. Solitary artists can redefine or re-imagine the world, but ideas, actions and changes are generated by people connected in the real world.” Jenny Walty - Contributing Editor, Artworld Digest Magazine
 
By defining the act of planting as a creative act the participant becomes an artist in a simple and sustainable way. The short term goal of this project is for hundreds of artists to participate in planting the seeds in creative ways. But the long-term goal is for thousands then millions and then billions of people to engage in creative growth and change. Everyone who engages in the act of planting a seed with creative intention becomes an artist.
 
We, as a society, need to turn organized creative energy to nurturing our environment because the industrial age we are emerging from has hazardously degraded the one we have. But first we need the structures which support organized energy. Art can serve these needs.
 
The Seed Project takes up the challenge of Social Sculpture with the goal of redefining the structures around us. It makes space for creative new solutions and finds alternatives to corporate consumerism. The idea of beauty has been relocated to a collective, imaginative work-space in which we can re-examine and reshape our lives to utilize our full creative potential.
 
Structures around us which constrict our freedoms have been erected by capitalist interests and the socio-corporate structure was developed to concentrate wealth. The economy is measured by the rate of consumer spending so corporations produce excess of what we don’t need by destroying what we do need like clean air and water, slowly changing the global ecosystem to make the world a less habitable place. As artists and citizens it is imperative to redefine what our purpose is, reclaim our stewardship of the environment and rebuild the structures to redistribute wealth, freedom and justice. We can alter our environment in positive ways once we accept that we are all artists and the responsibility that goes along with this realization.
 
Artists have the power to change the world through the creative act. When an artist makes a painting or sculpture that reveals a new world they redefine the one we live in everyday. In fact, artists already define culture and identity. They imagine and create clothing, architectural spaces, products, landscaping, film, advertising, etc. What is lacking is the acknowledgement in our society that artists possess this power. Planting the seed is symbolic of artists’ re-appropriation and realization of this power.
 
‘Every human being is an artist, a freedom being, called to participate in transforming and reshaping the conditions, thinking and structures that shape and condition our lives’- Joseph Beuys.