Founder of The Palestine Heirloom Seed Library Viven Sansour [Matbakh]
Viven Sansour talks to us about the politics of environmentalism, her work through the Palestine Heirloom Seed Library, and the link between anxiety and agriculture. We also spoke about the importance of indigenous wisdom in farming, changing landscapes in the Middle East, and Vivien’s work in preserving bio-cultural heritage.
Vivien Sansour is an artist, storyteller, food historian, researcher and conservationist. Vivien is the founder of the Palestine Heirloom Seed Library which finds and reintroduces threatened crop varieties and also collect stories to assert the ownership of seeds by communities. She also established the Traveling Kitchen, which is an extension of the Palestine Heirloom Seed Library. This project seeks to engage people in conversations around bio-cultural heritage, agrobiodiveristy and the process of coevolution between human activities in the field and kitchen. She uses image, sketch, film, soil, seeds and plants to revive old cultural tales in contemporary presentations and thus advocate for the protection of biodiversity as a cultural and political act.
About Matbakh
Matbakh is a conversation series that focuses on food and drink of the Arab world. The series will be held with food practitioners who study how food and the kitchen have evolved over time in the Arab world. The guests will be discussing the history of food and what its future might be, in addition to a specific recipe or ingredient that reveals interesting and unique information about the history of the Arab world. Guests will be chefs, food critics, food writers, historians, and academics. Following the interview, there is a moderated town-hall-style Q&A with questions coming from the live virtual audience on Zoom.
