Art and Soil Ecologies

It is a vital site of multispecies conviviality and a highly sophisticated regenerative system. Challenging the conception of the ground as a neutral or passive backdrop, or as terrain to be occupied, artists and environmental-humanities scholars emphasize the fragility of soil as a living entity that suffers, remembers, and “retains responsibility” (Fiske 2020, 136). Through nurturing land-care practices, cultivating “soil attentiveness” (Puig de la Bellacasa 2015, 120), and experimenting with legal frameworks to defend soil against pollution, artists have been positioning soil as a foundation for environmental justice since at least the 1960s. This project intends to reflect and build upon such theories and practices by developing artistic and art-based approaches that contribute to more just relationships to and through soil—with and through the ground.