Rachel Dana
Seed / Human
My thesis considers seeds as storage units: precious vessels preserving genetic material and carrying the world's histories. These textile pieces reflect on the illusory boundaries separating humans and nature and show living systems working in harmony—relating and reacting, pushing and pulling, living and dying. Through my work, I explore entanglement and material exchange, examining seed morphology and dispersal mechanisms to foster connections.
The human–seed relationship is embedded in time, migration, and survival. Although plants do not depend on humans for survival, humans have left their mark on everything. Every variety of seed represented here has traveled through mouths and hands and fur, soil and wind and water, adapting to drought and other changes since the beginning of time. The materials I use in my work carry the collective memory of their origins, and I seek to honor their stories. I forage, bead, spin, dye, weave, and felt, using the “leftovers” of other living beings to create works expressing memory and transformation. My physical presence and interventions join with materials to create new life forms.
