Site-specific Installations by Maria Thereza Alves
Seeds of Change: Marseille 1999-2000
Seeds of Change: Reposaari 2001
Seeds of Change: Liverpool 2004
Seeds of Change: Exeter and Topsham 2004
Seeds of Change: Dunkirk 2005
Seeds of Change: Bristol 2007
Seeds of Change: Antwerp 2009/2019
Seeds of Change: New York City 2017
Maria Thereza Alves is a Brazilian artist and has worked and exhibited internationally since the 1980s, creating a body of work investigating the histories and circumstances of particular localities to give witness to silenced histories (taken from the artist’s website: https://www.mariatherezaalves.org/cv/)
Seeds of Change is an ongoing artistic investigation that traces the overlooked histories of ballast flora—plants that traveled the world hidden in the soil, stones, sand, and debris used to stabilize merchant ships. When unloaded in European ports, these materials carried dormant seeds from faraway places, capable of germinating decades or even centuries later. By locating historical ballast sites through archival research, mapping, and fieldwork, the project collects and cultivates these seeds, revealing an alternative narrative of global trade, colonization, and ecological transformation. Rather than duplicating scientific study, the work reframes ballast flora as living witnesses to histories of migration and exchange, unsettling conventional ideas of place, belonging, and what is deemed “native.”
Extending across cities like Marseille, Liverpool, Dunkirk, and Antwerp, the project demonstrates how seeds are entangled with the socio-political histories of empire, famine, and forced migration. For example, Seeds of Change: Antwerp connects dormant ballast flora to Belgium’s colonial ventures in Guatemala and the Congo, exposing how ecological traces echo human histories of exploitation and violence. In making visible what official histories often erase, the project insists that art can reanimate forgotten narratives and make them resonate with contemporary realities, from the persistence of colonial legacies to the racism embedded in present-day Europe. By cultivating seeds that embody centuries of movement, Seeds of Change asks us to rethink how landscapes, identities, and histories are interwoven through both human and more-than-human dispersals.
— SG
Further Reading/ Viewing:
Kenneth Morgan, Shipping Patterns and the Atlantic Slave Trade, 1749-1770
R.B. Sheridan, The Commercial and Financial Organization of the British Slave Trade 1750-1807
Guillaume Daudin, Profitability of Slave and Long-Distance Trading in Context: The Case of 18th Century France