How Artistic Practices Can Help Maintain Diversity of Agricultural Seeds: Democratizing Research Methodology in Zimbabwe

In Mazvihwa, Zimbabwe, Saori Ogura is looking at how local communities relate to Indigenous crops, in a region where monocultural cash crops have reduced agricultural diversity. In field research in 2016, she found that drawing enabled her to better observe and capture the knowledge and wisdom of local people, including planting, harvesting, and cooking processes. Drawing the plants helped her to discern the non-linear, non-positivist relationships between people and plants. Working with these communities through artistic practices, she aims to be a part of revitalizing Indigenous, drought-tolerant crops for improving food security and climate change adaptation. This talk also forms part of the occasional Green College series Actors on the Anthropo(s)cene.