The Surprising Inspiration Found in Soil
# **The Artistic Exploration of Soil: A Review of *SOIL: The World at Our Feet***
### **Unveiling the Hidden Complexity of Soil Through Art**
Soil is often overlooked in urban life, relegated to parks, gardens, and farmland. However, *SOIL: The World at Our Feet*, currently displayed at Somerset House in London, challenges this detachment. The exhibition brings attention to soil’s crucial ecological role and cultural significance, using a blend of artistic interventions, digital works, and installations.
Curated by Henrietta Courtauld, Bridget Elworthy, May Rosenthal Sloan, and Claire Catterall, the exhibition presents soil as a complex and living system that sustains biodiversity but is increasingly threatened by human intervention. Through an array of artistic expressions, *SOIL* attempts to shift our perspective from seeing soil as mere dirt to recognizing it as a vital, life-giving force.
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### **Soil as a Living, Breathing Entity**
One of the most visually striking works is **Jo Pearl’s “Oddkin” (2024)**, an installation consisting of delicate, alien-like organisms made from clay (a fundamental component of soil). Set against the shadowy historic vaults of Somerset House, Pearl’s work evokes the intricate microbial networks that make soil fertile and underscores the importance of healthy earth for sustaining life.
The exhibition also features **Tim Cockerill and Elze Hesse’s** vibrant digital photographic depictions of bacteria, showing microbial life typically invisible to the human eye. Meanwhile, **Herman de Vries’s** piece presents an analog approach with an earthy grid of soil pigment samples, emphasizing geographical and environmental variations in soil composition. **Miranda Whall’s** hand-perforated paper artwork visualizes data from soil sensor networks, highlighting its hidden biological processes.
Through these varied media, the exhibition encourages consideration of soil as a network of organisms constantly evolving and regenerating.
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### **Soil as a Cultural and Historical Symbol**
Soil is intertwined with human history, memory, and identity. Some of the exhibition’s most powerful works explore how soil connects with themes of land, heritage, and displacement.
A standout piece is **“The Flowers Stand Silently Witnessing” (2024)** by Greek-Palestinian artist **Theo Panagopoulos**. This moving film juxtaposes archival footage of wildflowers in Palestine from the 1930s with present-day reflections on how land and identity are inseparable. Captioned with the poignant phrase, *“I look at the past, unable to cope with the present… But the archive can’t hold my grief,”* the work underscores the enduring emotional and political weight of land.
**Annalee Davis’s “Unlearn the Plantation”** invites viewers to reconsider the legacy of colonial agriculture. Having lived on a former sugar plantation in Barbados, Davis’s work critiques how land has been historically exploited through colonial capitalism and monoculture farming. Her pieces emphasize the lingering scars left by such systems while advocating for more sustainable relationships with the land.
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### **The Crisis of Soil Degradation**
A critical message running through the exhibition is the alarming degradation of soil worldwide. Industrial agriculture, erosion, deforestation, and urban expansion are rapidly stripping soil of its nutrients, biodiversity, and ecological functions.
A compelling visual representation of this is **David Nash’s “Sod Swap” (1983)** and **Mike Perry’s “Reverse Sod Swap” (2024)**. In **Nash’s original piece**, a circular patch of turf was transplanted from rural Wales to an urban London park, where a botanist counted 27 plant species in the countryside and just 3 in the city turf. Decades later, the contrast reversed: London’s park soil saw an ecological resurgence with 39 species, while the rural land’s diversity collapsed to only 4 due to industrial farming practices.
Perry inverts Nash’s concept by bringing a patch of London park back into the Welsh landscape, raising the question: Is urban soil now more ecologically diverse than the countryside? This shift starkly illustrates the consequences of over-farming, monoculture planting, and soil erosion.
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### **A Missed Opportunity: The Tactile Experience of Soil**
While the exhibition successfully highlights the complexity and vulnerability of soil, one noticeable absence is the direct interaction with soil itself. Many works portray soil through digital media, scientific imaging, video installations, or abstract representations rather than presenting the raw, sensory experience of the earth.
Soil’s texture, smell, and organic form were mostly absent, which is surprising given that many of the exhibition’s curators are gardeners. While embracing dirt might be uncomfortable for some urban visitors, physically engaging with soil—whether through touch, smell, or experiential installations—could have amplified the exhibition’s message on a visceral level.
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### **Final Thoughts: A