One can sense the room already from the staircase. The woody, warm scent of incense greets me before I even catch sight of the open door leading to a light-drenched room with two tall Victorian windows.
On the low shelving unit along the room’s left-hand side is an assortment of beautiful, handcrafted objects made from metal, wood, and other earth-toned materials. Looking at these objects, I feel a deep sense of nostalgia and home. Apart from my parents’ house, I’ve rarely encountered places outside West Africa where artefacts from my father’s native lands are displayed with such care and appreciation.
At Seed Archives, there are also numerous artefacts entirely unfamiliar to me. When that happens, I instinctively turn to the bookshelves on the room’s right-hand side, seeking texts to uncover the rich histories behind these sculptures and household artefacts.
Located in Tottenham, North London, Seed Archives is a free research library offering a unique collection of books and objects that celebrate African and Caribbean artistic traditions and cultures. It is the brainchild of visual artist Christian Cassiel, whose practice is rooted in community and connection.
I experience Seed Archives as a gathering place for a lot of my extended community. Something in-between public and private, intimate yet extremely open and welcoming for anyone interested in the knowledge it provides.
The muted sounds of the street drift through the open sash windows as Christian and I sit down in the space to discuss the archives and the vital role of preserving physical places where communities can gather, share knowledge, and exchange ideas.
Kadi: In Seed’s Instagram bio it states that Seed is about “giving objects a home”. Could you talk a bit more about that?
Christian: My inspiration for starting to collect these artefacts sparked during lockdown, when I spent a lot of time visiting these antique markets in East (London) and in the South. The objects were always standing on these overflowing tables or placed on the floor, there was a lack of curation to these masses of individually very beautiful artefacts, almost to the point where they felt neglected. I felt like I could create a space that highlights their beauty and fosters people's interaction and appreciation towards these very unique and important pieces.
Kadi: It’s always been fascinating to me how people transcend themselves into our material reality in terms of energy.
Christian: Absolutely. When someone purchases an object from Seed, I always write them a little handwritten note of what the object has witnessed in here; where does it come from, who has held it at Seed, which conversations it has heard... The artefacts are charged with all this positive energy. This is especially important because with some of these items I haven’t been able to track down their origins, other than general geographic location. If their journey, in terms of traceability, starts from Seed, I’m making sure that they’re coming from a good home.
Kadi: Hearing you say this brings up a sweet memory of when you lent me one of the akua’ba dolls for a project I was doing. I carried it around London with me, introducing it to friends all around the city telling them about the doll’s purpose and history.
Christian: Yeah! Having the artefacts just here among us, you’re encouraged to touch and interact with them. The idea is to breakdown any traditional ideas of a museum space or historical archives. People like to touch things, especially when most of these items are literally made for humans to interact with, think of the akua’ba doll as an example. And then you’ve got all the books right here in the room with the objects to tell you their story. You can sit down, have the object in hand and read about it. I find it way more meaningful to have a real experience of the artefact you’re learning about, rather than have it standing still and isolated behind glass. One could argue though that it’s done to preserve old or historical objects, but I’ve got a funny relationship with preservation anyways, I don’t think we’re meant to have things forever.
Kadi: What has been the best conversation that took place at Seed so far?
Christian: I can’t pick a singular one I think, there has been so many special ones in here. One of my favorites is when Andu, Ayo and Mikey came in here for the first time and we started talking ideas that led us into doing all these cool things for the event we curated as a part of the London Design Festival, Making Room. We were just brainstorming ideas and getting all hyped up and ended up making all the things we talked about in here reality, like booking a Kora player for the night. It’s a special time when a conversation that starts at Seed manifests outside into an actual thing like this. It’s good to see the ideas come into completion.
Kadi: We’ve discussed Seed a lot but you’re also an amazing photographer. Are your photography practice and Seed Archives intertwined?
Christian: Well, I fund Seed through my photography work and because I have this passion for both, it’s sometimes difficult to balance all the aspirations I’ve got for Seed with my personal projects. I do see Seed as bigger than just myself though, that’s always been very important for me.
Kadi: Your photography is expansive, stretching from portraits to nature all the way to food. To me, it has always had the most beautiful, tender atmosphere to it no matter what you photograph. It feels like every image is so loaded of the exact moment it was created in, emphasizing this sense of stopping time. What are the feelings and ideas you wish to communicate to the world via your image-making?
Christian: My image-making process is based on quite pure emotion. However, that emotion isn’t always something super complex or deep in the moment, it might just be an idea that I think will look visually interesting, but what that image then translates into can seem quite sensitive and deeply considered to the viewer. Like that photo of Anya Gallaccio’s hands for Financial Times. It’s quite funny when I get really excited about an image, I might get even a little awkward at directing it and then Anya is just standing there with charcoal in her hands like “how long do I have to keep them up like this”. Or that Portrait of Britain shot of my friend. You remember that one?
Kadi: Yeah, the one where she’s crying right?
Christian: Exactly! So, what actually happened was that Aisha, my friend in that image, was washing her hair and got coconut oil from it into her eye. So, instead of crying, her eye was just stinging really bad, and she was pretty pissed about it and I’m just there with my camera telling her to hold it, it was pretty funny. That’s the thing about photography; it can be quite deceptive.
Kadi: Still, I don’t think it takes anything away from what people then see in the image. If anything, it’s just quite beautiful, this idea that an image isn’t finished until a viewer lays their eyes on it.
Christian: True. I guess it’s just to say that the result of an image can be so romantic and poetic although the process of making it is potentially quite messy.
Kadi: I want to circle back to Seed Archives for a moment. Do you envision Seed having a physical presence in the African continent or the Caribbean one day?
Christian: Before I can even think about that I’ll have to do more travelling and learning about the places, especially the African continent. I’ve obviously been around there already but it’s just such a huge place with so much depth that I’ll just need to learn more for myself first. It’s interesting you’re asking this because there’s this other collector who’s from Burkina Faso but is currently based in Paris because of her home country's political situation. I was telling her that any work that she does in Europe is just as valuable as the work she does in the (African) continent, because here it’s us, the diaspora, that need to be reminded of where we come from, of our culture and heritage. We need spaces like this everywhere in the world because there will be challenges to overcome no matter where we go. Seed is one of these bases also and although it’s small it means so much to so many people.
Kadi: Agreed. For me as an example, coming from Finland there weren't any spaces like this that were by the diaspora and largely for the diaspora. It’s very important because I feel like for people like us it’s important to remember that we are allowed to claim all parts of our identity. Having these ties to Europe or England through one side of our family doesn’t mean that we're not African or Caribbean as well and vice versa.
Christian: Yeah. Like as much as I am Jamaican and of the diaspora, England is my home. I love the seasons, I love the British countryside you know, I love a pub. This is the place that I want to spend most of my life in. I’ve done a few photography projects for Atmos now about plants and these forgotten rainforests of Britain and those projects are in a way me laying my claim to this place as my home. Running Seed Archives and doing my photography work in tandem is quite representative of the different dimensions of my own identity.
You can reserve your free visit to Seed Archives by emailing Christian at seedinservice@gmail.com.
Interview & Photography by Kadi Jatta.
