Seeds Shall set us Free, 2017
Munem Wasif seeks to reimagine an indigenous “ecosophical” mode of agriculture, where grain is a companion species to humanity, having names, deities and spirits, around which the village organizes itself. He investigates the cultural history of grain, connected to memories of the 1944 Bengal famine, caused by hoarding for British troops. Seeds Shall Set Us Free is a series of cyanotype prints of rice seeds, referencing at once scientific representation and alpona, the Bengali practice of creating ritual floor paintings using rice paste. Wasif juxtaposes his cyanotypes of rice grains and plants with archive documents and photographs from one of the largest community grain banks (Nayakrishi Andolon) in the country. The artist excavates layers of ecological colonialism from the destruction of agricultural ecologies with the introduction of plantation farming and cash crops.
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