CAMILLA RUTHERFORD
THE SEED LIBRARY (from the series: Heal the Earth)
Her name is Kay Baxter. She collects heritage seeds. Why should we care?
Kay started her seed saving journey in the year of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. A mother of four young children, she learnt that all of the seeds she was growing her food from came from Holland, which was under a nuclear cloud. This didn’t sit right with her, so she did something about it. She began collecting and saving heritage seeds which co-evolved in magnetised soils rich in minerals.
As she grew her food from these seeds she felt that they were nourishing her and her family differently. They were incredibly nutritious, a whole different paradigm than the food sold in the supermarkets. With this discovery she began collecting more and more heritage food seeds and propagating them to pass on through the generations before they were lost for good. This is our history, this is our taonga, this is our future.
REGENERATE (from the series Heal the Earth)
Her name is Kay Baxter. She collects heritage seeds. Why should we care? I visited Kay in March 2020 to tell her story as part of my Heal the Earth photography project. My aim was to unearth the unsung heroes of today’s agricultural regeneration revolution, to tell their stories and how this is so important to each and every one of us who share this planet.
“We’re on a knife edge. My understanding is that we are on a knife edge ecologically, human health-wise, biodiversity-wise. We’re on a total knife edge on the planet right now and we have everything we need to turn it around. It’s really largely about reconnecting. Reconnecting with our people, with our animals, with the earth, with our food. It’s just about joining it all back up again, because it’s all been separated. It’s time we all joined the regeneration revolution.”
Kay Baxter 2020.
CAMILLA RUTHERFORD
Camilla lives deep in the Southern Alps of New Zealand, near Queenstown, on her husband’s high country merino sheep station.
Hailing from Scotland, Camilla originally came to NZ in search of snow in her summer break from studying at Central St Martins College of Art in London. After graduating with aBA Hons in Design for Performance, Camilla embarked on a 5 year winter, between Wanaka and Switzerland’s Verbier. During these winters she gained a reputation as a world-class snow photographer.
Somewhere along the line Camilla decided she would hang up her skis to enjoy a summer, and chose the town of Wanaka NZ to do this. Camilla now calls NZ home and lives for the 4 seasons, she travels the world over, shooting adventure sports, as well as travel, lifestyle and commercial photography. She is incredibly passionate about NZ and its unique and diverse landscapes and loves living, working and shooting here.
Camilla is mother to her sons Alfie and Lewis and endeavours to continue the balance of life as a photographer, mother and farmers wife