Last Time We Spoke is a 14 minute video which weaves together found footage, appropriated academic texts and a fictional narrative, partly inspired by a New Scientist article by Fred Pearce about the destruction of a seed bank in the Baghdad suburb of Abu Ghraib, as well as by the premise and structure of Anna Kavan’s novel Ice.
The narrator tracks a missing person who has disappeared after a major incident, perhaps in order to protect something precious stored in a cardboard box. In the aftermath of the incident, and the disappearance, the narrator recalls the circumstances of a major crisis in food production, one created by food markets, agribusiness, monocropping and environmental damage. The narrator looks for clues in recent history and by remembering their most recent encounter with the missing person, as well as imagining their current and future behaviour. Perhaps the contents of the box could help us recover from this global catastrophe, if it isn’t already too late.
Exhibition: Last Time We Spoke, 10 May – 09 June 2019, numer02 gallery, London
J.A. Harrington 