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Yann Mingard: Deposit

Yann Mingard‘s work Deposit (2014) documents attempts to store the genetic ancestry of our planet’s animals and plants. 

We are currently living in a geological epoch for which the proposed term is the Anthropocene. The term describes how, in our time, human activity has left an observable and lasting imprint on nature. Environmental disasters and mass extinctions of species have, justly, raised fears about the permanent loss of our biological world heritage. Around the world, obscure vaults have been built to store huge quantities of seeds, DNA and information, with which we can rebuild the lost paradise, if necessary.

For example, the Svalbard Global Seed Vault is designed to preserve the seeds of each crop known to mankind. Collections of this kind can become helpful in the event of the mass destruction of different crop species, such as in the case of the banana, and thus provide solutions for future food disasters.

“Behind all this, major corporations are salivating at the prospect of owning a seed bank and making a huge profit in the future”, says Mingard.

Semen samples collected from animals are, in turn, preserved and used for artificial insemination. They could be used for eugenic purposes, to achieve desired traits for farmed animals.

Yann Mingard (born 1973) is a Swiss photographic artist.

︎ Yann Mingard

POST-FOOD

PVF 2017
The Finnish Museum of Photography