Soils Turn, Soil Congress

The SOILS TURN deadline is just 18 days away! The call is for artists, scientists, designers, architects, writers and farmers, and will be the 2025 online interactive + printed book. If you have questions, please email. see below

This month we have nine members traveling to Florence, Italy for the 100th International Union of Soil Scientists annual Soil Congress to present papers for the Soil and Humanities plenary sessions addressing transdisciplinarity in Soil Science. This journey began three years ago with our monthly Soil Dialogues where we explore how artists can engage soils as aesthetic inquiry. Shortly thereafter participants buried textiles in soil and now this experimental process and outcomes will be featured in a pop-up exhibit titled Dialoghi del Suolo, presented at a former monastery, Il Conventino fuori le Mura. see below

Printed copies of The New Geologic Epoch are being delivered to Europe, Australia and across the US this month. Thank you sincerely for your patience. This is an absolutely gorgeous book with incredible artworks and thoughtful text. We are still taking pre-orders and will do a second printing soon. Check out the updated digital interactive edition on ISSUU here.

For our monthly public Zoom Dialogues in May we will hold the seventh Geologic Dialogues with artists who document the built environment through writing and sound. see below

I'm so thrilled and would like to acknowledge and thank the almost 90 artists who participated in our solar eclipse exhibition Transmissions. We now have an Eclipse Fundraiser Gallery to raise money for ongoing pop-up activities. link below

Patricia Watts, founder

Header image: ©Meg Webster, Concave Earth, 1986/1990, installation view, at Stuart Regen Gallery, Los Angeles, 1990. Photo: Susan Einstein

Thank you to 88 member contributors to Transmissions

Abigail Doan, Abinadi Meza, Adam Thorman, Alexander Heilner, Alyce Santoro, Amanda Lechner, Amy Scofield, Andrew Weathers, Arminee Chahbazian, Ashley Hollan, Ava Fedorov, Barbara Boissevain, Beth Ames Swartz, Beth Bando, Beth Shepherd, Bethany Johnson, Blair Butterfield, Bruria Finkel, Caitlin Parker, Carol Flueckiger, Caroline Roberts, Claudia O’Steen, DM Witman, David Ellingsen, David Koeth, Donna Cooper, Elizabeth Chiles, Elizabeth Stone, Ellen H. Ray, Erika Blumenfeld, Faith Johnson, Fern Shaffer, Heather L Johnson, Heidi Hallett, Heidi Lowell, Helen Glazer, Hollis Hammonds, Holly Fay, Jake Eshelman, Jamal Hussain, Jann Rosen-Queral, Janet Morgan, Jeff Schofield, Juliet Whitsett, Kariann Fuqua, Kate Temple, Kathleen King, Katrina Bello, Kim Tanzer, Krista Leigh Steinke, Laura J. Lawson, Laurie Sheridan, Laurinda Stockwell, Lil Olive, Linda Stillman, Linda-Marlena Ross, Lisa B. Woods, Madelaine Corbin, Madge Evers, Margaret Smithers-Crump, Margaux Crump, Mary Ciani, Mary Mattingly, Maureen Burns-Bowie, Meredith Nemirov, Michele Brody, Miriam Sagan, Nancy Macko, Nancy Winship Milliken, Naomi Ben-Shahar, Natalya Khorover, Nathan Budoff, Oliver Hillenkamp, Priscilla Stadler, Rebecca Pugh, Rosalyn Driscoll, Samantha Melvin, Sarah Nelson, Shirley Crow, Solange Roberdeau, Stefan Hagen, Tammy West, Teresa Cunniff, Trine Bumiller, Ulrike Arnold, Virginia L. Montgomery, Yasmin Youssef, Zea Morovitz

online event

Geologic Dialogues

Part VII - Writing / Sound / Documentation

Thursday, May  16

United States: 10am HDT, Noon PDT, 2pm MDT, 3pm CDT, 4pm EDT

Europe: 20:00 GMT  Australia: Friday, March 15, 7am AEDT

For our seventh, in a series of monthly dialogues organized around our 2023 online exhibition + upcoming printed book The New Geologic Epoch, we bring together artists who document the built environment through writings, sounds and photo works, on lands they co-inhabit with the more than human world.

           Emily Budd, Kellie Bornhoft, Kim V. Goldsmith, Perdita Phillips

Recording for the April 18 Sound/Video Geologic Dialogue

This event is free for members + one guest. Non-members are $5.

All participants MUST REGISTER.

call for members

CALL FOR ARTISTS, SCIENTISTS, DESIGNERS, ARCHITECTS & WRITERS

SOILS TURN

DEADLINE May 18, 2024

"…human beings are not in a separate compost pile. We are humus, not Homo, not anthropos; we are compost, not posthuman." Donna Haraway

Haraway’s call to reimagine human as humus reflects a recent 'soils turn' in the social sciences, humanities and arts that seeks to diversify mainstream soil knowledge and empower people to reconnect with soils. Heeding this call, SOILS TURN will be the 2025 ecoartspace annual online interactive + printed book, which will be realized as a compendium and directory of artists, scientists, designers, architects and writers who engage with soils. 

Image: Helen & Newton Harrison, Making Earth Again, 1990, glass, cork, dirt, 6 5/8 x 1 3/8 in.

in-person and online events

Dialoghi del Suolo is a three-day pop-up event in Florence, Italy to coincide with the 100th IUSS Soil Congress. There will be almost thirty soil textile works presented by ecoartspace members from the United Kingdom, Australia, Portugal, Germany, Canada and the United States. Artists include:

Alexandra Toland, Allie Horick, Andrea Bersaglieri, Anne Yoncha, Annette Nykiel, Ashton Phillips, Cassandra Tytler, Christopher Lin, Cindy Stockton Moore, Deanna Pindell, Evgenia Emets, Grace Grothaus, Jill Price, Jo Pearl, Kim Norton, Kim V. Goldsmith, Lauren Bon + Metabolic Studio, Maru Garcia, Pamela Casper, Priscilla Stadler, Renata Buziak, Rhonda Janke, Ruth Wallen, Samantha Passaniti, Saskia Jorda, Stephanie Garon, Susana Soares Pinto, Valerie Constantino

For more information and to see the sessions and papers being presented by our members at the IUSS Soil Congress, click link below:

Australian Dialogues

Place-based interventions in three time zones

for United Nations, World Environment Day, 5 June, 2024

Australian based WED events are now listed on our website!

blog post

Transmissions in Austin, Texas:  ecoartspace eclipse pop-up exhibition, report by Patricia Watts

featured ecoartspace artist

pattie beerens

My ethos for inhabiting place decentres the human and repositions it in an ecosystem of materials.

to be collected (clay, seaweed, branches, friends, stones)
to be grown (crystals, plants, connections)
to be entangled (plant dyes, bio plastics, alchemy, place)
to be gathered (textiles, string, wool, people, ideas)
to be treasured (stories, relations, collaborations, kin)
- to be mattering.

www.beerens.net.au

store

The New Geologic Epoch

Online exhibition and printed book

The New Geologic Epoch, juried by Mary Mattingly presents works by over seventy of our members from Scotland, Ireland, England, Sweden, Portugal, Brazil, Australia, Canada and the US, whose work focuses on the shifting baselines in the landscape, which over time have become the new normal.

                 Now taking pre-orders for a second printing

Go to store

announcements

Forecast Change Lab Research Fellow, focused on Resilience in Public Art has been awarded to New Mexico artist Paula Castillo, who's working to make a tangible impact on national public art policy. April 1, 2024. Above

The artist 'bending' the Los Angeles River, Lauren Bon is hoping her new project can save some of Southern California's most precious resource: water, featured in The Art Newspaper, April 19, 2024. Online + print

Creative Climate Action, Can Art Protect Us from Rising Seas was a lecture by Xavier Cortada, part of the Kim and Judy Davis Dean's Lecture Series, Harvard Radcliff Institute, Boston, Massachusetts. April 8, 2024. Recording

Rooted in Creativity, The Fusion of Fashion, Filmmaking + Nature includes a cover story on the short film "Chronos, time of Sand," by Nicole Dextras, and work by Saskia Jorda, Fiber Now, Spring 2024.

Centre for Contemporary Art and the Natural World is now archived online, directed by Clive Adams for 25 years (1995-2020) in the UK.

TREELINE is an online quarterly newsletter with a feature article on the National Climate Assessment with images of works by Meredith Nemirov, and Tammy West, Bonneville Environmental Foundation, Portland, Oregon. April - June 2024.

ecoartspace has served as a platform for artists addressing environmental issues since 1999. In 2020, we transitioned to a membership model. Members include artists, scientists, professionals, students, and advocates sharing resources and supporting each other's work. This is an inclusive, non-competitive collaborative environment where we can imagine and make real a healthy, equitable, resilient future.

PO Box 5211, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87502