Mobile Seed Library
What
The Mobile Seed Library is an art and ecology project celebrating the dynamic relationship between people and seeds. We offer seed skill workshops and creative art workshops to support an emerging network of seed libraries in Edinburgh.
Why
At a time when the world faces multiple social and environmental crises, the simple act of growing, harvesting and celebrating seed is an act of solidarity and hope. Solidarity with the more-than-human world (a world of other animals, plants and intricate life forms) and hope that as a human community we can re-learn what it means to be ecological.
The Mobile Seed Library supports Edinburgh city council’s transition to net zero carbon by 2030. Key to that vision is the concept of climate resilience. Biodiversity and cultural diversity are integral to climate resilience and seed libraries are an expression of both.
How
The Mobile Seed Library works across six networked projects: A+E, Greening Our Street, Salisbury Centre Seed Library, Bridgend Farmhouse, Craigmillar Community Grows, and Craigmillar Now.
These projects are distinct in character but they all share a common commitment to what the seed activist, Vandana Shiva, calls our biodiversity commons.
- Recognition of the creativity intrinsic in the diversity of life forms
- Recognition of the common property regimes in the ownership and utilisation of biodiversity
- Recognition of the intellectual commons – public domains in which knowledge of the utilisation of biodiversity is not commodified
The Mobile Seed Library animates this commitment in three ways: by encouraging the creative interplay between humans and the more-than-human world, by establishing common practices of seed care in Edinburgh, and by publicly celebrating the work of our partners and their extended bio-cultural networks.
Jonathan Baxter 