The Creative Arc funding will provide support for Exeter Seed Bank’s flagship events and activities and produce two new strands of work within October – March 2025: a time for seed collecting and winter sowing. The project is dedicated to expanding interest in the craft of seed saving, a practice of cultural importance and understanding of our natural and cultivated spaces.

‘Seeding Continuity’ will see support for ESB’s recruitment of more Seed Guardians, seed packing workshops and the annual Exeter Seed Swap event. The latter will feature talks, demos, and other activities, as well as the opportunity to swap seeds and speak to the team.

‘Local Community Landraces: Resilient Together’ is a community growing project to develop a ‘landrace’ broad bean for Exeter. The concept of the ‘landrace’ brings together different varieties of a single vegetable crop to grow, compete and open pollinate within a space. This mixes the genetic diversity, making the stocks stronger and more adapted to local climate and soil conditions, and produces an actual ‘local’ seed. Community-growing groups and individuals will be invited to pool broad bean seed varieties and take some of the mix away to grow over the winter. This activity focuses on experiential learning to discover how the landrace produces resilient seeds that will work well in Exeter’s soils.

‘Celebrating Local Resilience and Learning’ will see the development of an interactive mobile exhibition kit for events and in new art spaces, eg Traction Projects, and for complementing RAMM’s forthcoming exhibition ‘Beyond the Plate’.

www.exeterseedbank.co.uk