new yamfish seed exchange (nyse), 2021. Installed at the Minnesota Street Projection (San Francisco, CA). Photography by Jenna Garrett and the Minnesota Street Project.
speculation: (n), from the Latin speculātiō — exploration, observation.
1. the contemplation or consideration of some subject.
2. a conclusion or opinion reached by such contemplation.
3. conjectural consideration of a matter.
4. engagement in business transactions involving considerable risk but offering the chance of large gains, especially trading in commodities, stocks, etc., in the hope of profit from changes in the market price.
The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) is the world’s largest stock exchange, with billions of dollars in equity bought and sold daily. These investments are made with the intention of private capital accumulation rather than public sustainability or repair. The new yamfish seed exchange (nyse) is a prototype for a different investment ecosystem, rooted in collaborative imagining and play — more speculative fiction than financial speculation. Whether you plant money melons and yamfish or drought-resistant wheat and climate-justice seeds, your mind is fertile. Does it matter that yamfish are not real, if they might help us cross into generative new territory? What divisions would you bridge? What inequities would you repair?
The nyse is a creative laboratory, functioning as both genesis and scaffolding. Just as a seed contains the past and the future, this exhibition hopes to reimagine the present as soil composed of both the past and the imagination. A wall-sized map documenting migrations of major food plants over the past several millennia accompanies printed collage works suggesting speculative germination sequences. Meanwhile, two short experimental films about mysterious seeds use improvisational methods to make sense of a shared but uncertain reality. Viewers are invited to take free soil and postcards, seed-making kits and non-GMO seeds sourced from independent growers. In exchange, they leave behind seeds of their own, whether real or conceptual. The nyse encourages the public to re-imagine what exists now, in order to better imagine what exists tomorrow.
Click here to view the virtual exhibition.
This show was made possible with support from The Minnesota Street Project Foundation and The Space Program in San Francisco.
*definition from Dictionary.com (Random House Unabridged Dictionary, supplemented by dictionaries from American Heritage and HarperCollins), accessed June 6, 2021.
A wall of give-aways at the nyse. Cards and seed packets designed by the artist and printed by The Aesthetic Union and Brian von Bargen, respectively. Seed-making kits designed and made in collaboration with The Museum of Craft and Design in San Francisco. Ledge contains ‘seeds’ made by visitors. Photography by Jenna Garrett and the Minnesota Street Project.