Seed. Epitaph of Life, 2009

Andrzej Banachowicz’s Seed. Epitaph of Life is an outdoor sculpture located in Poznań’s Cytadela Park, between the rose garden and the Museum of Armaments. Unveiled in May 2009, it was created as part of the Poznań City of Art project.

The light sandstone form takes the shape of an enlarged grain, encircled by massive black beads made of fireclay covered with metallic glaze — in strong contrast to the pale core of the composition. The whole structure is set on a triangular granite plinth. The work’s form unites organic qualities with symbolic simplicity, evoking the cycles of nature and human life.

Seed is a vessel of life, a beginning, and a potential. Yet within the context of an epitaph, it also becomes a sign of transience, decay, uncertainty, and death. The sculpture addresses themes long present in Banachowicz’s work — reflections on the essence of being and the meaning of existence. Its symbolic ambiguity — between birth and demise, hope and emptiness — makes Seed a work open to interpretation. For some, it is a parable of the sower; for others, a universal metaphor for the human condition.

Its placement in Cytadela Park amplifies its message. A site once marked by battles, today a space of recreation, becomes the perfect backdrop for this contrast between history and the present, between what has passed and what is yet to be born.

The work was created in cooperation with the Wielkopolska Society for the Encouragement of Fine Arts.