Imprinting Change: Seeds, Ice and Earth Ethics through Artistic Practice

Abstract The planetary boundaries framework maps the ecological limits that keep Earth stable. Current research shows that seven of nine boundaries have already been crossed, prompting urgent consideration of how we hold the planet’s fragility, live within shifting limits and imagine alternative futures. Art can support this work by communicating through material and sensory experience, helping connect scientific ideas with lived understanding. My arts practice investigates transformation – moments when matter shifts states – echoing Earth systems dynamics such as melting, slow drifts, sudden tipping points, cycles of life and death. This article examines three artworks developed during my Spitsbergen Artist Center Residency that explore these links. A seed destroys itself for its own survival uses prints on seed-storage bags to connect the Australian Grains Genebank with the Svalbard Global Seed Vault – a paradox of security and vulnerability as permafrost melts. Doomsday Core presents glass-blown seeds that burn and blister, evoking ice cores and apocalyptic futures. Portrait of Longyearbyen Glacier presses analogue film into glacial surfaces, recording atmospheric activity from a vanishing world. Rather than offering solutions, these works invite reflection and propose art as a way to engage learners with planetary systems through sensory, imaginative and human ways.