Dropping Seeds focuses on the theme of persistent suffering brought on by human rights violations and how such suffering shifts from the personal realm to infect collective behaviour. The challenge is to transform residuals of violence into ethical relations and awareness through the mediation of art.

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The project is comprised of four sections that interweave images, words and sounds:

I. Dropping Seeds. The installation that gives its name to the entire project, is hosted in the Loggia del Temanza, headquarters of the Centro di Studi e Documentazione della Cultura Armena (Center for Research and Documentation of Armenian Culture), a splendid outbuilding in the gardens of Palazzo Ca' Zenobio in Venice. Dropping Seeds is an immersive installation: visitors enter a hollow delimited by sheets of mulberry paper with images of woven roots and branches in states of growth and decomposition that define a place for both reflection and transition.

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II. Poets in Residency. A month-long retreat curated by the poet Efe Duyan in the guesthouse of VeRiPa, the Fondazione Venezia per la Ricerca sulla Pace (The Venice Foundations for Peace Studies) located in the ex-convent of Sant'Elena. The residency will host eight artists of the world who have been victims, witnesses, inheritors of human rights' violations.

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III. Event for Dropping Seeds. A program of music and theatre performances, readings, conversations, film screenings and radio podcasts.

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IV. Journal for Dropping Seeds. An online publication that will launch at the beginning of September with participants' biographical information and writings (including transcripts and translations to accompany the public readings), and ongoing contributions by scholars, analysts and artists, as well as links to Radio Ca' Foscari podcasts of participants' readings.

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The programme of events can be found here.

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http://www.veripa.org/progetti/dropping-seeds/

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