Archiving Eden: Exchange 

Los Angeles Arboretum & Botanic Gardens

Curated by Shirley Watts/Natural Discourse

September 9 - November 17, 2024

Archiving Eden: Exchange is an outdoor, interactive installation illuminating the collaborative effort of caring for the environment. The transparent, twelve-foot square structure is hung with more than 5,000 magnified X-ray images of California wildflower seeds. The mosaic pattern created by these colorful tiles incorporates research data and is inspired by a map of the impervious surfaces and related vegetation loss in Los Angeles County.

During seed exchange events, the public is invited to remove and keep one of the X-ray tiles from the wall and replace it with a clear bag containing a single seed provided by the Theodore Payne Foundation for Wildflowers and Native Plants. Over time and with viewer participation in seed exchange events, the structure will transform both physically and visually, into a living seed bank containing enough seeds to save a species.  

With Archiving Eden: Exchange, viewers are encouraged to examine their collective responsibility to care for the environment while reflecting on the monumental effort required to safeguard biodiversity.

In addition to Archiving Eden: Exchange, the Los Angeles County Arboretum & Botanic Garden presents a series of twelve large photographic images from Doherty’s ongoing series Archiving Eden: The Vaults curated by Shirley Watts of Natural Discourse.

With thanks to:

Shirley Watts, Natural Discourse, Los Angeles Arboretum & Botanic Gardens, Theodore Payne Foundation for Wild Flowers & Native Plants, the College of Visual Arts + Design University of North Texas, Ann Hatch, Anonymous, Natural Discourse, the Missouri Botanical Garden, KUBTEC, Donald Danforth Plant Science Center.

Archiving Eden: Exchange  (Toronto) 

Archiving Eden: Exchange presents x-ray images of 5,000 seeds — the smallest number required to preserve a single plant species. Housed within a vault-like structure, the installation comes to life during seed exchange events, where visitors are invited to take home an image from the vault’s walls and replace it with a transparent envelope containing a single Canadian seed. Over time, the installation changes both physically and visually: from representational to actual, dark to light.

The seeds available for exchange are representative of common agricultural crops grown in Canada, including soy, corn and beans, as well as a variety of native wild plant species. The black-and-white x-rays lining the installation’s walls were captured by Doherty in collaboration with scientists at several international seed banks.

With Archiving Eden: Exchange, viewers are encouraged to examine their collective responsibility to care for the environment while reflecting on the monumental effort required to safeguard biodiversity. At the close of the exhibition, the 5,000 seeds will be donated to the Toronto Botanical Garden Seed Library — a collection of vegetable, herb and flower seeds that growers can borrow from and donate to.