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NordGen lectures about the Seed Vault at two English festivals

Date: 2018.07.05

Are you in England? Don’t miss out on NordGen’s Seed Vault Coordinator discussing seeds, the future and the importance of preserving plant genetic resources at two different festivals in England on the 6th and 7th of July.

The FutureFest is one of Europe’s largest festivals exploring ways to shape a better future. Among distinguished speakers and debate participants, NordGen is invited, as operational manager of Svalbard Global Seed Vault, to participate in a panel session organised by the Heritage Future project at the UCL Institute of Archaeology in London.

Presentation and panel discussion

At one of the festival stages, NordGen’s Seed Vault Coordinator Åsmund Asdal will present the Seed Vault and participate in a panel discussion chaired by Professor Harrison together with Mafalda Costa from the Frozen Ark project and Martin Kunze from the Memory of Mankind project.

“The discussions will touch upon the items that are conserved in the three projects; how material is conserved, when is the future these items are conserved for and how the material will be used in the future,” says Åsmund Asdal.

In addition to ordinary stages and performances that are common in Festivals, the FutureFest in the heart of London has created a forest or garden where the speakers are invited to meet smaller groups of festival participants in a more informal and intimate way. The FutureFest gather about 4 000 people.

Symposium gather passionate participants

Åsmund Asdal will also attend The Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery. “Seeds” is the theme of the year for the Symposium which is taking place at St Catherine’s College at Oxford University on the 6th to 8th of July. The event traditionally gathers a wide range of passionate and enthusiastic participants; from food-writers to historians, anthropologists, botanists, archaeologists, journalists, scientists, students etc and claims to be the oldest and most important gathering on this topic.

“In addition to NordGen speaking about conserving seeds in the Global Seed Vault in Svalbard, key note speakers are coming from the Millennium Seed Bank, part of the UK Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, Tel Aviv University and Washington State University, all dealing with seed science,” says Åsmund Asdal.

Seed dish recipes and inspiration

Quite natural, the symposium is also known for its spectacular meals designed to accompany each year’s theme. Lunches and dinners during the symposium this year include seed dish recipes and inspiration from countries like Ukraine, Georgia, Persia, Burma and Israel and seeds from a wide range of crops.