SEEDS & ANA

Ana collected pods and dried seeds scattered over the desert floor as she travelled through Namibia, they were too beautiful not to take home. At the end of the trip, knowing she wasn’t meant to bring seeds into the UK, she guiltily packed them onto the plane. On returning home she opened the box, it was peppered with cocoons and crawling with small white insects. She left it on a shelf for the insects to die, then moved them to a darker shelf thinking they might continue to thrive with light. Two years later she returned to the box, the insects were still alive. She resolved to starve them of oxygen tightly knotting a plastic bag around the box. Six months passed before she looked again, her guilt had thrived – guilt for taking them from their habitat, guilt that generations of the insects must have hatched in the box and struggled to survive, guilt for her desire to preserve her African memories in some physical form. The insects were still alive, to assuage her guilt she put the box in the freezer, this is where they remain. She hopes that this will finally kill them.

26 Jun 2011