Allotment Garden Event Series: Crocodile Seeds by Lucy Davis / The Migrant Ecologies Project
16 March 2024 at 15:00–16:30 
Museum of Finnish Architecture, 2nd Floor (Kasarmikatu 23, 00130 Helsinki)

In this event, hosted collaboratively by Bioart Society and Museum of Finnish Architecture, bioartistic approaches, storytelling, and plant cultivation meet the varied themes of the Garden Futures exhibition, with visual artist Lucy Davis' presentation of her project Crocodile Seeds, part of The Migrant Ecologies Project.

Crocodile Seeds is an artistic research project that explores a 130-year-old dead crocodile, its history, and its contents. The 4.7 meters tall crocodile was killed in Singapore in 1888 and given to the British colonial Raffles Museum. It was stuffed with straw of yet unknown providence. From this straw, were gleaned cereal grains, and as-yet-unidentified plant and flower seeds. Organic farmer Magnus Selenius and his niece Embla Lindblad from Nyby Gård, Espoo, specialise in older cereal varieties, and are now trying to grow the seeds and cultivate a 'crocodile meadow'.

Another story of the crocodile concerns the historical figure of Pang Limah Ah Chong, a 19th C. Chinese, Taoist mystic and tin mine Triad leader in Colonial Malaya. According to an article in the Straits Times in 1948, his spirit resides in the same crocodile.

How might incongruous materials and beings, hosted by this colonial trophy, seed stories that inspire in a time of climate change?

The event can accommodate 30 participants.

Accessibility

The Allotment Garden space is located on the 2nd floor of the Architecture Museum, in the small exhibition hall. The space can accommodate a total of about 30 people (with safety distances 10-15 people). The space has various backrest seats available. The Architecture Museum building is not fully accessible. You may find more information about the building’s accessibility here.
The event uses the safer space principles of the Architecture Museum. Please familiarize yourself with them beforehand.

The event is part of the Garden Futures: Designing with Nature exhibition program. The exhibition is the first collaborative exhibition between the Museum of Finnish Architecture and Design Museum on their journey towards a new architecture and design museum. It will sprawl across both museums, taking over the exhibition spaces on Kasarmikatu and Korkeavuorenkatu until 31 March 2024.

For more information, check the Museum of Finnish Architecture website.

Lucy Davis is a visual artist, art writer and founder of The Migrant Ecologies Project. Her transdisciplinary practice encircles plant genetics, tree lore and bird song as well as art/science, naturecultures, memory, materiality, narrative environments, and most recently, pyscho-ecologies of resilience. She is Associate Professor (Contemporary Art) in Visual Cultures, Curating and Contemporary Art (ViCCA) Department of Art & Media, Aalto University, Finland.
www.migrantecologies.org