Through personal stories Blood is a Seed (La Sangre Es Una Semilla) questions the disappearance of seeds, forced migration, racism, colonization, and the subsequent loss of ancestral knowledge.
During the course of the 20th century, 75% of agricultural plant genetic diversity was lost globally. A main driving force of declining agrobiodiversity is the push for the cultivation of monocultures of modified and often non-native varieties, for higher-yield crops.
The video is narrated by the photographer and their father, and is informed by the father’s memory, as well as their own perceptions of the transformations experienced by small farmers over the last three generations. Romero's father migrated in 1981 in search of better opportunities and to escape the violence that Colombia was experiencing in those years.
The video is composed of digital and film photographs, some of which were taken on expired 35mm film and later drawn on by Romero’s father. In a journey to their ancestral village of Une, Cundinamarca, Colombia Romero hopes to learn about their history and explore the forgotten memories of the land and crops, and about her grandfather and great-grandmother who were ‘seed guardians' and cultivated several potato varieties. Only two potato varieties are still mainly consumed in Une.
Although the project is an exploration into the past, it engages with contemporary techniques – playing with the parallels between genetic codes and binary codes of digital photographs – in order to preserve this ancient knowledge for the future.
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