A World in Waiting

Victoria and Albert Museum, London
2017

In collaboration with IC-98

Linen, acrylic, cotton, viscose, 
polyester, encapsulated seeds

553 × 302 cm
217¾ × 118⅞ in.


A World in Waiting imagines Europe two thousand years from now. Sea levels have risen. Humans are long gone. The tapestry depicts the site of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, where seeds from around the world have sprouted into dense forest in the warmer climate of the far future.

The work was commissioned by the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Goethe-Institut as part of Collecting Europe, a project inviting artists to imagine the continent's distant future. The seeds of the depicted plants are woven directly into the fabric — making the tapestry itself a vessel for what comes next.