I Am a Seed Though a Different One From You
2014-2015
A seed is power.
As plant life in its embryonic form, it is a robust life force encased, frozen in time and ready to spring forth once conditions for germination are optimal. Growing a seed is like hitting the ‘start’ button on a timer, there is no turning back, no holding back.
Yet a seed is also doubt.
When does it outlast its dormancy? What are the environments compatible for its maturation? What is its capacity for transformation? Will it weather the storms or flail in the winds?
It is Lavender Chang’s ravenous curiosity in pursuing the possibilities of life and existence that feeds this investigative visual project. Over a period of a year, the artist experimented with growing varieties of beans in diverse mediums and conditions such as carbonate drink, Chinese ink, milk and blood- metaphors of the struggles and obstacles one face in life as individuals. Resembling human forms, the seedlings arduously eke out their transient existence with visual poetry akin to Chinese landscape paintings.
Most crucially, this series is also a continuation of Chang’s preoccupation with the passage of time. As time compressed, a seed is nature’s unassuming intervention on a caring spectator. The role of being a gatekeeper of life and death has enforced a ritualistic order in her lifestyle, further sensitizing her to the ever subtle shifts in time.
Human life may seem long and unyielding, but in relation to the vast trajectory of human history, we are all but seeds, strong yet fragile, colossal yet minute.
