Unpacking Soil with D in Herefordshire

D, P and M in conversation about soil in Herefordshire, October 2018
Current creative practice
My work is structured around issues, rather than disciplines or media: it is idea led, rather than self-expressive. My practice stems from the multidisciplinary and collaborative practice of Helen Mayer Harrison (b. 1927) and Newton Harrison (b. 1932), Mierle Laderman Ukeles (b. 1939) and Agnes Denes (b. 1931).

My practice is a kind of field work located in Herefordshire. It is situated at the intersection of ecology, politics, law and economics, to try and comprehend our new geological epoch controversially called the Anthropocene. My work is open-ended: I film, take pictures and record the narrative of my local constituency.

In this project (October 2018- October 2019) entitled Soil, I aim to give humans and other interrelated species a voice.

Interview as practice

This is part one of an unedited interview of a locally renowned gardener who lives near Hereford. Her name is D. D explains what soil is and tells stories about her gardening. I have known D for over a year. Most weeks I give D a hand around her large' jardin à l'anglaise' and in exchange she shares her stories and expertise. This is a face to face conversation taking place in D's kitchen where I ask her few questions. I introduce the reason for our conversation and mention the specific subjects I want D to talk about. D knows that I will use our conversation for my practice which this year focuses on soil. At this stage, I understand soil more as the stuff of alchemy than biology or geology and D has agreed to be one of the specialists advising on this project. The interview lasted 40 minutes. Before I packed my recording equipment, we both listened to parts of the recorded conversation. I did not offer to send D a copy of the tape. But I will do so next week, this is part of good practice. This excerpt is 10 minutes long. In this interview soil is looked at in various ways:

     .a complex material

     .the multi-dimensional character of soil, a public and private good

     .soil as a sense of place

Click here to listen to the recorded interview

Handfuls of new ideas

Listening to D, I discover that we add to soils, for example changing its Ph levels - adding composted materials - leaves, manures etc. Soil is a universe of many:  'A handful of soil can contain literally billions of individual organisms and thousands of species' (Earth Matters, How soil underlies civilization, Richard D. Bardgett, OUP 2016, chap 2 Soil and Biodiversity). This makes it the most densely populated part of the planet

Despite having scientific names, we all know them. Here is a selection of these underground organisms:

     .ectomycorrhizal which is a form of symbiotic relationship that occurs between a fungal symbiont and the roots of various plant species. (Wikipedia)

     .decomposer fungi, fungi are not plants, they feed on nutrients from the organisms they are decomposing.(Wikipedia)

     .ammonia-oxidizing archaea which transforms amonia into nitrate; this is believed to be a central part of the global biogeochemical nitrogen cycle since the oxygenation of Earth. (https://aem.asm.org/content/78/21/7501)

     .nematodes, or roundworms

     .testate amoebae is a single-celled organisms which makes a shell called a 'test' that partially encloses the cell, with an aperture from which it can emerge, to provide the amoeba with shelter from predators and environmental conditions. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Testate_amoebae).

    .ants, millipedes, centipede, earthworms, woodlice, moles, flatworms etc.

According to the book Earth Matters, Cleopatra (69-30 BC) 'declared [worms] to be sacred because of their contribution to Egyptian agriculture.'(p24).

This hidden universe is at once minute and great, substantial and diaphanous, amorphous and definite. It is all about scales: the tiny size of a testate amoebae and its complex defence mechanisms are astonishingly all packed into one single cell, and just like worms, played 'so important a part in the history of the world' (Darwin, 1881, cited in Earth Matters, p 24).

I am expanding, exploring, discovering several facets of soil, the agency of this network, what do we have in common with 'them' lowly creatures' (Darwin), how words can migrate from biology to art and  talk about emotions as in ektos, 'outside', μύκης mykes, 'fungus', and ῥίζα rhiza, 'root'. Or the term Loam which means a blend.What do I want to say in this project? This will be conveyed by my research which for the foreseeable time will extend into:

.literature search for soil-words and could also be a search for soils of  languages

.collecting soils around Herefordshire, inviting people to contribute to the project with a handful of their own soil

.recording the sound(s) of soil, in a recording studio environment (HCA) with a sound technician and an actor plus top soil from D's garden. Soil is A Sound Not Meant To Be Heard (see the exhibition by Cardiff-based artist Anthony Shapland, Oriel Davies Gallery, 2018:http://www.orieldavies.org/en/exhibition/sound-not-meant-be-heard) so as an experiment let's give soil first person, I/WE.