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Shelf Life

In development
2025-2026

 
Shelf Life is a new public sculpture by Anna May Kirk developed in collaboration with the Australian National Botanic Gardens and the National Seed Bank.

Emerging from Kirk’s participation in a seed deposit at the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in October 2025, Shelf Life investigates seed preservation as a strategy for climate resilience, asking what it means to safeguard a life at the scale of a seed.

The sculpture is composed on two planted bronze seed forms, developed in dialogue with botanists and seed scientists, resting upon an aluminium shelf-life base. Suspended between dormancy and growth, archive and organism, Shelf Life positions seeds as living technology for navigating uncertainty, embodying a collective care in futures yet to emerge.
 
I acknowledge the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation, the traditional custodians of the land I work on and pay my respects to Elders past, present and emerging.
Running on Cargo