Upcoming

Wild Relatives by Jumana Manna

Event Details

DATE: September 17, 2025 TIME: 7pm (Doors 6:30pm)

LOCATION: Now Instant, 939 Chung King Rd, Los Angeles

Registration

TICKET PRICE: Free with donation to the Sameer Project

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Trailer for Wild Relatives (2018), written and directed by Jumana Manna.

Active Cultures and Now Instant present Seeds, a three-part cinematic meditation on new beginnings, hidden power, and pivotal transformation.

The series begins with Jumana Manna’s Wild Relatives (2018), tracing the intricate journey of seed distribution from Lebanon’s Beqaa Valley to the global seed vault in Norway’s Svalbard archipelago.

The program is followed by a discussion with Nina Raj, founder and steward of Altadena Seed Library, as we talk about seed banking, the importance of biodiversity, and the vital role our community plays in restoring local ecosystems.

In lieu of purchasing a ticket for the screening, we are asking all attendees to make a donation to The Sameer Project. This Palestinian-led initiative is dedicated to providing tents, medical aid, and clean water to displaced families in Gaza, while operating community kitchens to feed those in need. A donation receipt is required for entry, though because capacity is limited, RSVPs are required as well.

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About the Artist

Jumana Manna

Jumana Manna is a visual artist and filmmaker based in Jerusalem and Berlin. Her work explores how power is articulated, focusing on the body, land and materiality in relation to colonial inheritances and histories of place. Through sculpture, filmmaking, and occasional writing, Manna deals with the paradoxes of preservation practices,...

About Wild Relatives

Deep in the earth beneath the Arctic permafrost, seeds from all over the world are stored in the Svalbard Global Seed Vault to provide a backup should disaster strike. Wild Relatives starts from an event that has sparked media interest worldwide: in 2012 an international agricultural research center was forced to relocate from Aleppo to Lebanon due to the Syrian Revolution turned war, and began a laborious process of planting their seed collection from the Svalbard back-ups. Following the path of this transaction of seeds between the Arctic and Lebanon, a series of encounters unfold a matrix of human and non-human lives between these two distant spots of the earth. It captures the articulation between this large-scale international initiative and its local implementation in the Bekaa Valley of Lebanon, carried out primarily by young migrant women. The meditative pace patiently teases out tensions between state and individual, industrial and organic approaches to seed saving, climate change and biodiversity, witnessed through the journey of these seeds.

Credits

Active Cultures is sustained through the generous support of the Los Angeles County Department of Arts and Culture; the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs; the Getty Foundation; the Jerry & Terri Kohl Family Foundation; the Maurice Marciano Family Foundation; the Offield Family Foundation; Teiger Foundation; the Wilhelm Family Foundation; James Cohan Gallery; Who Wants To Be A Millionaire/ABC; William Grant & Sons; Active Cultures’ Board of Directors; the Members Circle Annual Fund; Green Art Lab Alliance (GALA); and the Los Angeles Visual Arts (LAVA) Coalition.

This series is made possible in part by a grant from the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs.