SEEDS ANGELS

Artwork by Alma Feline Junker
The NXT Magazine: Transformations of Care

The inspiration for my work SEEDS ANGELS (2024) stems from knowledge gained during my studies at the Organic Agriculture School, Kalø Økologisk landbrugsskole, in spring 2024. It became clear to me how much of today’s economy and lucrative business is built at the expense of a healthy and resilient planet, leaving people with cheap but poisonous vegetables, stripped of nutrition and vitality.

According to seed activist Vandana Shiva, around four to five companies control up to half of all seeds bought and planted worldwide. This reveals a profound disrespect for the nature of the seed itself. A seed is not merely a product, but a living entity that builds strength and resilience in relation to the environment it belongs to. In the commercial seed industry, this intrinsic capacity is neglected, leaving farmers with weakened seeds and a heavy dependency on fertilisers and pesticides. Over time, biodiversity and native plant varieties risk going extinct. One can imagine a future where these once-abundant seeds are so rare that they are traded at high prices on black markets.

This perspective connects to how we perceive nature in Denmark today, where 60% of the land is cultivated for agriculture, most of it in monocultures. The landscape we now call “nature” is in fact an orderly, human-designed system, one that drains the soil of nutrients and resilience.

And here lies the deeper resonance of SEEDS ANGELS. The way we control and standardise nature mirrors the way women’s bodies are perceived and reproduced within a capitalist framework. Fertility, like biodiversity, is expected
to be orderly, productive, and efficient. Yet true strength lies in difference, in variation, in what cannot be streamlined. Biodiversity equals disorder in all its uniqueness. So too does the female body, with all its differences, resist the pressure to conform. The work points to this parallel: a critique of the systems that flatten complexity, and a reminder that both seeds and bodies carry resilience precisely through their diversity.

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ALMA FELINE JUNKER