About
This project highlights and celebrates the wondrous stories of plant seeds and seed-savers, and memorializes these narratives into seeds themselves.
Since 2016, the project traveled to many venues in the US and internationally, and depicted several hundred stories of both professional and enthusiast growers.
The images are created by hand-engraving the motifs into the outer layers of the seed-coat with specially-designed cutting tools under magnification.
The incised seeds are then gifted back to people who bring them for either planting or preservation.
Project Overview
Partnering with Hudson Valley Seed Company, Seedshed and other horticultural organizations across the country, Furrow seed engraving project travels to different venues to engage various communities in a dialog about meaning of seeds and seed-saving advocacy.
By highlighting contributions of both professional and enthusiast growers, Furrow project celebrates the vibrant biodiversity, inherent in traditional small-scale agriculture, thus advocating for sustainable and resilient production of ingredients for future societal food security.
Biography
With an extensive background in metal-smithing, jewelry design and engineering, Sergey Jivetin brings his skill set of a master craftsman into every art experiment, transforming ordinary materials into potent conveyors of meaning. Sergey Jivetin’s art presents miniature elements in unexpected settings to examine humanity's convoluted relationship with nature. Growing up in Uzbekistan, the site of one of the greatest ecological disasters of the 20th century heightened Jivetin's sensitivity toward the preciousness of natural resources and their management.
Since coming to the United States in 1994, his practice has expanded from wearable pieces of jewelry to include experimental flatware, scientific and medical apparatus, sculptural objects and site-specific installations. He is the recipient of numerous accolades including fellowships from the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation, Peter S. Reed Foundation and New York Foundation for the Arts. Jivetin’s work is in the permanent collections of many public and private entities, such as the Smithsonian Institution,Metropolitan Museum of Art and Dallas Museum of Art.
