Soil Culture
Soil Culture is a long term, creative project that scrutinizes soil degradation within the capitalist infrastructure of consumption and production, where soil is exploited without redress. The project traces remnants of these extractive cycles, which result in the accumulation of trash, polluted debris, and wasted materials in landfills. Soil Culture makes visible what is often invisible, fostering embodied understandings of the environmental and social impacts of soil.
Located on a landfill in Essex County, Massachusetts, Soil Culture merges ecological thinking with first-hand immersive experiences to deepen understanding and inspire action towards an aesthetic view of soil. Through collaborative and non-hierarchical methods, Soil Culture fosters critical dialogue and empowers communities through the exploration of soil as a vital, dynamic entity intertwined with human culture and ecological systems.
Image: Soil Culture, wildlife camera site documentation
Soil Culture is a project created by artist Julie Poitras Santos and artist-philosopher Maria Patricia Tinajero, and funded by the Collective Futures Fund, an initiative supporting visual artists in the Greater Boston area administered by the Tufts University Art Galleries and part of the Regional Regranting Program of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.