Singapore

The 4.7m concertina artists book: A Guide to the Interior of a Salt Water Crocodile by Zachary Chan and Lucy Davis with photographs by Kee Ya Ting, June 2019. Photos: Kee Ya Ting

Wheat Grain World Dreams, the centre section from the artist’s book contains a map that includes some of our research questions around, for example, histories of 19th century cash crops and the crimes of the  British India Company; and the extension of China’s Belt and Road journey West.

This is our box and our seed in its current resting place inside Mine 3 Platåberget Svalbard, Arctic Circle.

After what seemed like a long walk in silence and darkness into the mountain we came to an almost mythological-looking door with the words ‘Fröhall’ – seed room – written upon it. This was the door of the original seed bank chamber, which was an initiative of the Nordic Genebank. Photo: Anna Laurent.

Inside the mine with the Migrant Ecologies Project box, with project conceptualiser Dr. Fern Wickson (right) and other artists. Photo: Anna Laurent

The artists outside Mine 3 of Platåberget Mountain, in a moment of silence with their boxes in the goodbye ceremony to the exhibition. Lucy Davis & Zachary Chan (Migrant Ecologies Project), Maggie Puckett (Seeds in Service), Sergey Jivetin, Anna Laurent, Ivan Juarez, Paul Chartrand.

Our neighbour, the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, was under reconstruction during our time in Norway in order to make the vault more resilient against melting glaciers and water leakage. This is the view from the mine next door in which the boxes were buried. Photo: Maggie Puckett

Part of a letter from Stephane Rennesson. We are still trying to find an appropriate format to honour the tremendous care and consideration that went into these letters and artworks.

Letter from Harriet Rabe Von Froelich. We are still trying to find an appropriate format to honour the tremendous care and consideration that went into these letters and artworks.  

Artist letters, clockwise from top left: Letters from Mari Keski Korsu, Marietta Radomska, Lee Weng Choy and Filippa Ramos.  

We included 60 letters by leading artists and writers in Southeast Asia and beyond, addressed to the grain of wheat. Many are works of art in their own right. We have scanned them all and are issuing Certificates of Authenticity that these were buried in Platåberget. Clockwise from top left: Letters from Bartaku, Susie Lingham,

For the benefit of the possible intelligences that may find these treasures after humans have long gone, we have translated one of the photographs of our wheat gleaning ceremony in Singapore into binary code.

This is the second resin eye that was inside the crocodile (the first is in the NUS Museum). We include this eye in our offerings so that it may watch over our grain, together with a four-lined tree frog, two blue bees and assorted butterfly wings. It is a gesture aligned with what Donna Haraway

 A biscuit tin formerly containing Mermaid Brand Cream Crackers with wheat designs on the outside was chosen as the box to house the wheat as well as test tubes of salt, needles and Singapore’s very own NEWater – all for the wheat’s ritual protection.

A biscuit tin formerly containing Mermaid Brand Cream Crackers with wheat designs on the outside was chosen as the box to house the wheat as well as test tubes of salt, needles and Singapore’s very own NEWater – all for the wheat’s ritual protection.

Zachary Chan and Muhammad Faisal Bin Husni in a ritual ‘wheat gleaning ceremony’ in Singapore. We requested permission from the spirits of the crocodile, the wheat and Panglima Ah Chong to take the grain of wheat to the mountain in Svalbard. A DVD of the performance was buried along with the artworks. Photo: Kee Ya Ting

The artist’s book is the main artistic contribution of the Project. It draws together the entangled stories of what we know about the crocodile, the seed and the spirit of Panglima Ah Chong, alongside a series of odes to them. Here, all the artists are helping to hold our 4.7m book – the exact length of the saltwater

The one grain we were able to find in the wheat from inside the crocodile was inside this husk, now buried inside the mountain in Svalbard. You can see the grain on the bottom row, second from the right. Photo: Kee Ya Ting

The interior of the crocodile photographed at the then-Raffles Museum of Biodiversity in 2013. Photo: Kee Ya Ting

The first known image of the crocodile, shot in 1887 at the mouth of the Serangoon River. Photo: Original photographer, owner and copyright unknown. Reproduced in Tan, Kevin, Y.L. Of Whales and Dinosaurs. The Story of Singapore’s Natural History Museum. National University of Singapore Press 2015 pp 42-43