María Thereza Alves / Wake

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Introduction
Charles Darwin once took a small piece of mud from a bird feather and extracted five plant seeds from it, which he planted. All five seeds sprouted and three different species of plants grew. In Wake, Core samples of the earth are collected from various construction sites in Berlin. The samples are planted and dormant seeds are given a chance to germinate. »Although seeds seem to be dead, they are in fact alive and can remain vital in soil for decades, and even hundreds of years in a state of dormancy«, writes the botanist Heli Jutila. The history of the earth of the local site is researched.