Led by Nora S. Vaage, with the Norwegian Arena for Bioart (NOBA) at Vitenparken Campus Ås, artists in residence Annike Flo and Cecilia Jonsson, invited artists.
This work package explores the kinds of lively encounters and caring interactions that can take place among artists, soils and audiences. It investigates the material aesthetics and concept of soil through visceral means, exploring how art can work with and provide understanding of soil as multispecies assemblages. The art exhibition and festival will bring together perspectives both within and beyond the project, emphasizing means by which soils and their various living critters can be visited with and reflected upon through sensorial, explorative, situated experiences.
Aim
Artists, both invited and found through an open call, will be encouraged to engage with, and draw inspiration from, the project’s research through participation in workshops, fieldwork and discussions. The work package has two objectives:
A: Curate a soil art exhibition
This exhibition will be hosted by NOBA, Norway’s first permanent arena for bioart, located within Vitenparken Ås. The exhibit will include art already made as well as art enabled through the aegis of NOBA. As a facilitator of new artworks, NOBA nurtures innovative methods for working with earthly matters, by fostering interaction among concepts, methods and techniques from artistic practice and environmental humanities, biology and geology (e.g., critical approaches, microscopy, fieldwork, DNA sequencing).
Artists can choose to work in their own studios, participate in researchers’ labs, engage in fieldwork or use NOBA’s BioArtLab. NOBA’s bioart approach will facilitate interactive engagement with audiences, for example, through artistic workshops in which the public is invited to work materially with soils. The exhibition will be curated by the PI and co-curated by core team members in collaboration with invited artists.
B: The material aesthetics of soil
This objective will study the material aesthetics of soil as expressed in the artworks in part (a) and connect insights from this artistic work to the insights of stakeholders addressed in the other WPs, to further understanding of the multispecies material-aesthetic interactions soil can engender. The practices of the enlisted arts will be integrated into the SOILS festival and actively used in communicating the project’s results. The artistic component of the project stands in dialogue with the work of the other WPs, enabling a rich conversation that will encourage sustainable cultural and societal development.
Questions
How do soils emerge as aesthetic and material artifacts within artistic practices? How might artistic means of engagement enable newfound engagements with and understandings of soils as living multispecies assemblages?
Methods
This work package will enlist a range of artists in hands-on, soil-based projects, and will produce philosophical reflections on the material aesthetics of soil as well as a number of other outcomes (see Gantt chart). Bringing earthly matters “up close and personal”, the WP will generate knowledge in material and experiential forms likely to engage the public. The invited artists will host open studios and engage in fieldwork well-suited to attract attention to the core issues addressed by the project.
The WP will develop a dissemination program of multisensory, immersive experiences that allows the public to rethink their relationships with soil and form new ones. The WP will organize two PBWs on Earthly Feelings and Soiled Hands, as well as the SOILS exhibition and festival, to enable knowledge transfer between academic disciplines, practitioners and the public.