KERA Arts Story Search



Looking for events? Click here for the Go See DFW events calendar.

Think TV: The Global Seed Vault — as Art


by Jerome Weeks 5 Apr 2010 7:35 AM

Dornith Doherty, a University of North Texas art professor, has been X-raying and photographing some of the world’s seeds held by the Svalbard Global Seed Vault — inside a mountain in Norway. Her photos are often delicate snowflakes and mandalas. Krys Boyd talks to Doherty about biodiversity, clones and “Archiving Eden.”

CTA TBD

[flashvideo filename=rtmp://kera-flash.streamguys.us:80/jwplayer&id=video/artandseek/2010/100402_think_408 width=470 height=263 displayheight=263 image=wp-content/uploads/2010/04/think408.jpg /]

Dornith Doherty, a photographer and art professor at the University of North Texas, was inspired by a New Yorker story (“Sowing for Apocalypse”) about the Svalbard Global Seed Vault — which preserves the world’s biodiversity inside a mountain in Norway 800 miles south of the North Pole. There are actually 1400 seed banks in the world, and Doherty, who was already interested in brilliantly colorful, restored and preserved landscapes, began to X-ray and magnify and photograph some of the seeds — for her project, “Archiving Eden.”

Verdant Ring, photograph by Dornith Doherty, 2008

SHARE