Can we compost that?

For the IUSS’ Commission 4.5 History, Philosophy and Sociology of Soil Science, Alex Toland (Bauhaus-Universität Weimar) and Anna Krzywoszynska (Twente University) will host a public dialogue at the Centre for Contemporary Arts Glasgow on August 5, 2022, from 2.30-6:00 pm, as part of the World Congress of Soil Science’s “Cultural Tour” of Glasgow. A series of impulse statements, featuring geologist and WCSS Keynote Suzi Huff Theodoro, artistic director of Zone2Source, Alice Smits, and Farmerama podcaster, Katie Revell, will set the stage for group exercises in soil futures-making.

The dialogue event will conclude with a tour of the exhibition, We are Compost / Composting the We and a performative composting of materials. The dialogue begins with the question: How can healthy soil become not only a metaphor but a driver for social change?

Please bring

• a publication donation: old or new

(text)book, catalogue, brochure, poster, zine, handbook or children's book to be included in the growing research section of the exhibition, AND/OR 2)

• paper-based shredables:

printouts of raw data, scatter plots, anonymised reviewers comments, sketches, maps, pencil doodles, field notes, rejected proposals, etc. to add to the compost heap (black and white only, no glossy paper).

Bios

Dr. Suzi Huff Theodoro is a geologist with degrees in economic geology, sustainable development and socio-environmental conflicts. She is a professor and researcher in the Postgraduate Program in Environmental and Rural Development at the University of Brasilia (Brazil). Her research interests include soil re-mineralizers, the recovery of degraded areas, agrogeology and feminism.

Katie Revell is a Glasgow-based audio producer with a particular interest in food, climate change, and relationships to the land. Since 2016, Katie has been part of the team behind the award-winning Farmerama Radio podcast, which shares the voices of regenerative and agro-ecological farmers. As a member of Open Jar Collective, she has also produced a collection of podcasts documenting Propagate’s “Soil and Soul” project – a series of soil-related workshops with community groups across Glasgow in the run-up to the World Congress of Soil Science.

Alice Smits is researcher at the Rietveld Academy and initiator and artistic director of Zone2Source, a platform for art, nature and technology in Amstelpark, Amsterdam. She co-directed the Amakula Kampala International Film Festival in Uganda from 2004 to 2012 and has curated longer term collaborative research programs such as Machine Wilderness (together with FoAM), a series of artist residencies in Artis Zoo in 2022. She writes regularly for art magazines such as Metropolis M and is also a guitarist in the free improvisation band Oorbeek.