Vibrant Soils
exhibition, Spinderihallerne, 2024
A collaborative project with design researcher Louise Permiin, building on work presented in Jord/Luft.
Did you know that the Earth is alive? Every day, we walk on top of millions of small soil-dwellers that help ensure we can live and breathe on Earth. In Vibrant Soils, we combine biological research and artistic approaches to explore the invisible worlds within our soil. This project is a collection of sound recordings, videos, images, and sculptures that collectively mark the presence of a diverse array of soil-dwellers within the Danish landscape.
What if you could hold a sound in your hands? Our set of clay objects featured in this exhibition is the experimental result of our explorations in translating vibrations from the soil’s ecosystem into sculptural forms. To create these works, sound recordings of tiny soil-dwellers, such as earthworms and mites, are utilized in a custom-built system that generates sculptural 3D models from audio files. These 3D models were then 3D printed in wild clay that we harvested and processed, resulting in a series of unique clay sculptures that are both of the landscape and from the landscape.These works, along with the other pieces in Vibrant Soils, invite you to dive underground, explore hidden habitats, and forge a deeper connection to the living earth around us.
This project was supported in part by: Spinderihallerne, Vejle Kommune, ceramicist Anna Andersen, Senior Researcher Emeritus Paul Henning Krogh from the Aarhus University Dept. of Ecoscience and Sissel Fuglsang-Smidt, Jordens Hus.
Did you know that the Earth is alive? Every day, we walk on top of millions of small soil-dwellers that help ensure we can live and breathe on Earth. In Vibrant Soils, we combine biological research and artistic approaches to explore the invisible worlds within our soil. This project is a collection of sound recordings, videos, images, and sculptures that collectively mark the presence of a diverse array of soil-dwellers within the Danish landscape.
What if you could hold a sound in your hands? Our set of clay objects featured in this exhibition is the experimental result of our explorations in translating vibrations from the soil’s ecosystem into sculptural forms. To create these works, sound recordings of tiny soil-dwellers, such as earthworms and mites, are utilized in a custom-built system that generates sculptural 3D models from audio files. These 3D models were then 3D printed in wild clay that we harvested and processed, resulting in a series of unique clay sculptures that are both of the landscape and from the landscape.These works, along with the other pieces in Vibrant Soils, invite you to dive underground, explore hidden habitats, and forge a deeper connection to the living earth around us.
This project was supported in part by: Spinderihallerne, Vejle Kommune, ceramicist Anna Andersen, Senior Researcher Emeritus Paul Henning Krogh from the Aarhus University Dept. of Ecoscience and Sissel Fuglsang-Smidt, Jordens Hus.
Exhibition view.
Exhibition view.
Exhibition view, listening to soil sounds.
Soil sound sculptures, 3D printed wild clay, various dimensions; largest 14 cm high. edition of 2.
Detail, soil sound sculpture.
Outdoor installation of soil sound sculptures, 2024.
Detail, outdoor installation.
Process video with our soil recordings as soundtrack, 2024.