Solidarity Seeds: Situated Knowledges in Bishan Village, Wang Chau Village and Aarey Forest

Between 2015 and 2018, artist-researcher Michael Leung visited three sites—in China, Hong Kong and India—each facing destruction as the result of land development. Leung worked with local farmers and activists on creative projects, with the goal of increasing the visibility of these local land struggles as well as strengthening transnational solidarity. In this chapter, Michael Leung revisits the ‘three seed projects,’ as documented in artefacts and photographs, in order to explore what it means to use situated knowledge to enrich existing narratives. He posits a rhizomatic approach to research-creation as embedded within social practice, in which the making of objects—seed packets, critical maps, fictional stories, photographs, zines, and other actors—is a generative act, the objects themselves becoming ‘seeds’ that nurture, grow and exchange local knowledge.