1st Edition
Field to Palette Dialogues on Soil and Art in the Anthropocene
Field to Palette: Dialogues on Soil and Art in the Anthropocene is an investigation of the cultural meanings, representations, and values of soil in a time of planetary change. The book offers critical reflections on some of the most challenging environmental problems of our time, including land take, groundwater pollution, desertification, and biodiversity loss. At the same time, the book celebrates diverse forms of resilience in the face of such challenges, beginning with its title as a way of honoring locally controlled food production methods championed by "field to plate" movements worldwide. By focusing on concepts of soil functionality, the book weaves together different disciplinary perspectives in a collection of dialogue texts between artists and scientists, interviews by the editors and invited curators, essays and poems by earth scientists and humanities scholars, soil recipes, maps, and DIY experiments. With contributions from over 100 internationally renowned researchers and practitioners, Field to Palette presents a set of visual methodologies and worldviews that expand our understanding of soil and encourage readers to develop their own interpretations of the ground beneath our feet.
I. SUSTENANCE
1. Urban Farming: The New Green Revolution?
Agnes Denes and Rattan Lal in conversation with Alexandra Toland
2. Taste of Place: Terroir as Experience
Laura Parker in conversation with Tom Willey, Lou Preston and Scott Burns
3. A Root Stew from the Kitchen of Sarah Wiener
Sarah Wiener
4. Artisanal Soil
Sue Spaid
5. Black Gold
Tattfoo Tan
6. Temple of Holy Shit: On Human-Soil Nutrient Cycles and the Future of Sustainable Sanitation
Valentina Karga, Ayumi Matsuzaka and Stephen Nortcliff in conversation with Alexandra Toland
7. S.Oil
Maria Michails and Ronald Amundson in conversation with Alexandra Toland
8. Murray River Punch: A Conversation on Changes Along the River
Richard MacEwan and Bonita Ely
9. Yield
Matthew Moore and Brent Clothier in conversation with Alexandra Toland
10. On Corn Mothers and Meal Culture: Ecofeminist Alternatives to Food Politics and Soil Security
Roxanne Swentzell and Parto Teherani-Krönner in conversation with Alexandra Toland
II. REPOSITORY
11. Soil Genesis: A Dialogue for Creation
Veronique Maria and Olafur Arnalds
12. A Kind of Soil Genesis on Canvas
Ulrike Arnold in dialogue with Thomas Scholten, Facilitation and text: Bettina Dornberg
13. Painting with Earth: Earth Pigments in North Devon a Guide for Teachers and Artists
Peter Ward
14. Pedometrics, Pictures, and Poetry
Elvira Wersche and Alex McBratney
15. From Earth
Herman de Vries in conversation with Nico van Breemen
16. Correlation Drawing/Drawing Correlations
Margaret Boozer and Richard K. Shaw in conversation with Claire Huschle
17. Mineral Traces: The Aesthetic and Environmental Transcendence of Soil Mineral Properties
Sarah Hirneisen, Jason Stuckey and Don Sparks
18. A Snapshot in Time: The Dynamic and Ephemeral Structure of Peatland Soils
Laura Harrington and Jeff Warburton
19. Carbon
Taru Sandén in dialogue with Alexandra Toland, postscript and images by Terike Haapoja
20. Deep-Time Moles: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Geological Archiving
Dave Griffiths, Sam Illingworth, Matt Girling
III. INTERFACE
21. Honoring Soil Hydrology in Pictures
Gerd Wessolek
22. Waterviz at Hubbard Brook: The Confluence of Science, Art and Music at Long Term Ecological Research Sites
Lindsey Rustad, Xavier Cortada, Marty Quinn, Torrin Hallett
23. Aesthetic Engineering: Giving Visual Credence to Restoration Processes
Bruce James, Daniel McCormick and Mary O’Brien
24. Rocks, Radishes, and Restoration: On the Relationships Between Clean Water and Healthy Soil
Aviva Rahmani and Ray Weil
25. Dirt Dialogue
A conversation with Jackie Brookner, compiled and completed by Maxine Levin
26. WATERWASH for a Swimmable Bronx River
Lillian Ball and Edward R. Landa
27. Backyard Portals: A Solutions-Oriented Approach to Valuing Soil
Stacy Levy in dialogue with Patrick Drohan
28. Don’t Worry, It’s Only Mud
Patricia Watts and Amy Lipton in conversation with Mel Chin
29. The Art of Decay: Soil Decomposition Explored Through the Visual Arts
Farrah Fatemi and Laura Fatemi
IV. HOME
30. Exploring the Invisible: The Exemplary Life of Soil
Simon F. Park
31. SOILED. Reflecting A Natural Body Through Socio-Aesthetical and Bio-Political Viewpoints
An Interview with Suzanne Anker by Regine Rapp & Christian de Lutz
32. Nematode State of Mind
Daro Montag in dialogue with Diana Wall
33. On Colour Hunting
Natsai Audrey Chieza and John Ward
34. A Public Chemistry of the Detritusphere
Georg Dietzler and Ellen Kandeler
35. Soil Macrocosms: Microbes, People, and Our Cumulative Effects
Alejandro Meitin, Claire Pentecost, and Brian Holmes in conversation with Ela Spalding
36. A Soil Procession and Seed Journey to Preserve Genetic Diversity
Régine Debatty in conversation with Amy Franceschini
37. Future Worlds
Wanuri Kahiu and Peter Haff in conversation with Carlina Rossée
V. HERITAGE
38. Reframing Heritage: Cultural Soilscapes and Soil Memory
E. Christian Wells and Marlena Antonucci
39. The Weapon is Sharing
Cannupa Hanska Luger in conversation with Alexandra Toland
40. Stories from the Hills: Tales of the Lowland
Ruttikorn Vuttikorn, Myriel Milicevic and Prasert Trakansuphakon
41. Sketches in the Sands of Time
Mandy Martin and Libby Robin with responses from Guy Fitzhardinge and Mike Smith
42. A Visual Ethnography of Soils in Space and Time
Ekkeland Götze and Winfried Blum in conversation with Alexandra Toland
43. Lessons from Emma Lake: A Metamorphosis of Science and Art in Landscape and Local Colour
Ken Van Rees and Symeon van Donkelaar
44. Soil Connoisseurship
Linda Weintraub
45. Underground Roots
Nance Klehm in conversation with Akilah Martin
46. Soil Lovers Unite! for a Down & Dirty Q & A
Beth Stephens & Annie Sprinkle in conversation with farmer philosopher Fred Kirschenmann
VI. PLATFORM
47. Seeing the Soil Platform
Amy Green
48. Perpetual Architecture: Uranium Disposal Cells of the Southwest
Center for Land Use Interpretation
49. Wastelands
Lara Almarcegui in conversation with Gerd Wessolek
50. The Earth Print Archive: A Forensic Documentation of Land Take
Betty Beier in conversation with Gerd Wessolek, with input from Frank Glante and Jörg Katerndahl
51. Soil in the City: The Socio-Environmental Substrate
Debra Solomon and Caroline Nevejan
52. The Soil Assembly and Dissemination Authority (SADA): A Thought Experiment in Building Tomorrow's Soils Today
Ellie Irons, in collaboration with Jean Louis Morel
53. Soil Chemistry and Urban Design in the Hybrid Landscapes of South China
Seth Denizen and Qiu Rongliang
54. The City as Forest: Cartographic Reflections on Land Use in Brazil
Paulo Tavares and Antonio Guerra in conversation with Alexandra Toland
55. Island Urbanism: Rethinking the Land-Use Technology of the Watershed
Sean Connelly in dialogue with Alexandra Toland
Biography
Dr. Alexandra R. Toland is a visual artist and environmental planner
with research interests in ecosystem services, urban ecology, soil and
culture, and the Anthropocene. She is junior professor for arts and
research at the Bauhaus University of Weimar and has previously
lectured at the Technische Universität Berlin, University of Arts Berlin
(UDK), Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, and Leuphana University. She
co-chaired the German Soil Science Society’s Commission on Soils in
Education and Society from 2011 to 2015 with Gerd Wessolek and
continues to write and make artwork about soil.
Dr. Jay Stratton Noller is professor of landscape pedology and
head of the Department of Crop and Soil Science at Oregon State
University. His research focuses on morphologistics and human
interactions with soils in modern and ancient agricultural and forest
landscapes of the Middle East, Europe, and the Americas. His
experience crosses disciplines of soil science, geomorphology, art,
and archaeology and his work as an artist at Soilscape Studio LLC is
internationally recognized.
Dr. Gerd Wessolek is a soil physicist and painter who has pioneered
efforts at giving soils and soil science a broader exposure to wider
audiences through presentations, exhibitions, and soil art projects.
Information on his research on urban soils in the vadose zone and an
online gallery can be found at http://www.boden.tu-berlin.de. Since
1999 he has been chair of the Soil Protection Department at the
Technische Universität Berlin.
The ambition of the editors and contributors of the book Field to Palette: Dialogues on Soil and Art in the Anthropocene is to help society reconnect with soil. The chapters are either essays that explore some of the cultural articulations of soil or incredibly informative conversations between artists, activists and scientists who share their thoughts about the material properties, cultural histories, environmental functions and existential threats of soil.
Field to Palette is an amazing publication. Its almost 700 pages are packed with photos, surprising information and moving encounters. I wish i had the time to talk about everything i’ve learnt in the book. The unexpectedly sophisticated sensory abilities of nematodes or the method to turn plastic-free baby diapers into planters and nutrients for trees, for example. Since one of the greatest achievements of the book is the way it demonstrates the important role that artists can play in raising discussions with the public and in participating to the solution to the many challenges soil faces today, i’ll dedicate the rest of my review of the book to just a few of the artworks and stories i discovered in Field to Palette.
http://we-make-money-not-art.com/field-to-palette-dialogues-on-soil-and-art-in-the-anthropocene/