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Monoculture Meltdown is a long-term project developed in partnership with CLIMAVORE x Jameel at RCA that advocates for the recognition of free adaptation and cultivation of less water-dependent seeds as a key tool for the agriculture of the future, the preservation of cultural heritage in times of ecological crisis. It brings together diverse practices from agroecology, advocacy, law, and contemporary art to support the transition of food systems to fewer water dependencies in the face of the climate crisis. It fosters the idea of promiscuous genealogies: forms of plant exchange allowing phenotypes to freely express and differences across specimens not to be standardised.

Challenging the unregistered origins of peasant seeds, the project in Sicily and Puglia works with museums, cultural institutions and their living collections to create a provenance for drought-resistant seeds, while working with legal scholars to cultivate the rights of and to seeds in the Anthropocene.

Collaborating propagators in Sicilia include: Az. Agr. Acquaviva, Capo Granitola, Chiantala & Radice Sicula, Coop. Ciauli, Coop. NoE, Coop. Valdibella & Agricola Mpidusa, Lu Panaru, Tizza, Vallone Wilderness & Gesualdo Faulisi. In Puglia: Amedeco & Roberto Polo, Casa delle Agriculture, Coop. AlterEco, Coop. Karadrà, Coop. Pietre di Scarto, Contrada Serulla, Luna nel Pozzo, SeminAzioni, XFarm, Zilletta di Brancia.

About

Expanding the work of CLIMAVORE on food systems in the climate crisis, CLIMAVORE x Jameel at RCA is a research initiative that reimagines foodways for drylands and wetlands. A partnership between CLIMAVORE and Community Jameel at the RCA, it advances ecological networks to produce new knowledge and action towards spatial justice.

Partners

CLIMAVORE is a research platform, practice and movement that questions how to eat while humans change the climate. The new ‘seasons’ created by humans are erasing the boundaries between spring, summer, autumn and winter or annual monsoon events. Instead, periods of ocean pollution, soil depletion or fertiliser run-off are influencing our food landscapes more. CLIMAVORE, a term coined by Cooking Sections (Alon Scwabe and Daniel Fernández Pascula) in 2015, is an invitation to rethink a truly broken food system and to move beyond a carnivorous, omnivorous, locavorous, vegetarian or vegan diet to address these new seasonalities, while addressing the extractive and intensive practices that drive them. CLIMAVORE collaborates on a long-term basis with marine biologists, botanists, farmers, chefs, fishermen, anthropologists, geneticists, environmentalists, oenologists, chemists, soil scientists, conservationists, pastoralists and many others who live on the frontiers of the climate emergency.

Community Jameel advances science and learning for communities to thrive.
An independent, global organisation, Community Jameel launched in 2003 to continue the tradition of philanthropy and community service established by the Jameel family of Saudi Arabia in 1945. We support scientists, humanitarians, technologists and creatives to understand and address pressing human challenges. The work enabled and supported by Community Jameel has led to significant breakthroughs, including the Jameel Clinic's discovery of the new antibiotic Halicin, critical modelling of the spread of COVID-19 by the Jameel Institute at Imperial College London, and a Nobel Prize-winning experimental approach to alleviating global poverty developed by the co-founders of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL).

About the Royal College of Art

Founded in 1837, the Royal College of Art is the world's leading university of art and design. Specialising in teaching and research, the RCA offers degrees of MA, MPhil, MFA, MDes, MArch, MEd, MRes, Graduate Diploma and PhD across the disciplines of architecture, arts & humanities, design and communication. A small, specialist and research-intensive postgraduate university based in the heart of London, the RCA provides around 2,800 students with unrivalled opportunities to deliver art and design projects that transform the world. The RCA's approach is founded on the premise that art, design, creative thinking, science, engineering and technology must all collaborate to solve today's global challenges. The RCA is home to more than 850 of the world’s leading academic and professional staff who teach and develop students in 34 academic programmes. RCA students are exposed to new knowledge in a way that encourages them to experiment.The RCA runs joint courses with Imperial College London and the Victoria & Albert Museum. InnovationRCA, the university's centre for enterprise, entrepreneurship, incubation and business support,mhas helped over 81 RCA business ideas become a reality that has led to the creation of over 800 UK jobs. Alumni include such major figures as Dame Barbara Hepworth, Bridget Riley, Henry Moore OM, David Hockney OM, Sir Peter Blake, Sir Ridley Scott, Dame Zandra Rhodes, Sir Frank Bowling, Sir James Dyson OM, Tracey Emin RA CBE, Chris Ofili CBE, Sir Anthony Finkelstein, Francesca Amfitheatrof, Erdem Moralıoğlu MBE, Bianca Saunders and Thomas Heatherwick CBE RDI.