Soil and Friends
- What can we learn from plants? Can knowledge about soil deepen our understanding of humanity’s place in the world? Why are more and more artists migrating from the field of art to the cultivation of land? How can art institutions consciously support ecological imagination?
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Soil and Friends is an interdisciplinary artistic and research project developed in collaboration between the Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art in Warsaw and the PLATO City Gallery of Art in Ostrava. It comprises two group exhibitions, a public programme, artist residencies, and site-specific activities. The surroundings of the Ujazdowski Castle – its parklands and Warsaw escarpment – have for many years served as a space for artistic and ecological research and activity, while PLATO maintains a permaculture garden on its grounds. Soil and Friends builds on the earlier initiatives of both institutions, continuing a reflection on art as a space for collective engagement with nature.
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In the industrial era, humanity at best regarded soil as something self-evident – something that simply existed and required no attention, something invisible or even dirty. Today, however, we understand that soil, like the ocean, is an unexplored domain of our world, even though it lies just beneath our feet. It is not dead matter – quite the opposite: it is a site of intense activity by countless organisms, pulsating with transformative processes that embody life-giving forces. Soil has been deliberately misrepresented, turning it into an object, a commodity, and a target of speculation, much like animals, plants, water, and other beings. The curators of the exhibition focus attention on those who are aware of the consequences of poor soil management – they call them friends and invite us to listen to their stories. These are not only humans, but above all, a variety of other organisms engaged in earthly existence.
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From the perspective of soil, five centuries of human history amount to the growth of a fingernail – that is how long it takes for a one-centimetre layer of soil to form. The artists featured in Soil and Friends encourage us to abandon the human point of view and to open ourselves to experiencing the world – and ourselves – from the perspective of the soil and its eponymous friends.
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Soil is neither invisible nor silent, and plants are excellent storytellers. Through the practices of the invited artists, Soil and Friends explores the intertwined histories of plants, humans, and non-human beings, various ways of coexisting with and experiencing the world, and the intersections of art, land cultivation, and care.
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- Participating artists
- Milena Bonilla, Centrala, Julia Ciunowicz, Yoeri Guépin, Gosia Kępa, Kateřina Konvalinová & Judita Levitnerová, Krzysztof Maniak, Maksud Ali Mondal, Deirdre O’Mahony, Julia Ábalos Reznak, Anna Siekierska, Sounding Soil, Salka Tiziana, Ewelina Węgiel, Anka Wandzel, Jaśmina Wójcik and Lea Wróblewska, Zabriskie Buchladen für Kultur und Natur
- Curators
- Marianna Dobkowska and Edith Jeřábková
