Speaker: Olivia Angé - Université libre de Bruxelles
Date: 6th March 2024 - 9:30
Venue: Ca’ Foscari University, Venezia

Abstract

Seeds catalogues have been strategic for the implementation of intensive agriculture in post-war Europe. They were intended to promote a restricted series of crop varieties at the expense of existing diversity, by criminalising the sale of unregistered seeds. As catalogues were designed as tools of control and assessment serving the performance of the agroindustry, varieties were selected according to their productivity and fixity, fitting with the Distinctness Homogeneity and Stability criteria. This presentation explores the possibility of engaging cataloguing practices that would not reproduce Western modes of classification and value repertoire. It draws upon potato portraits for the making of a subversive seed catalogue, in collaboration with cultivators from the Parque de la Papa in the highlands of Peru.