In a strange way, you almost feel like you are one with the earth, your physical form segueing into the crumbly red soil between your toes, the roots above you and the microbes responsible for the faint whiff of petrichor assailing your nostrils. This vestibule, the first thing you encounter at Soil Stories, a multisensorial exhibition that recently opened at Bangalore Creative Circus (BCC) in Yeshwanthpur, sets the tone for all that follows in this “journey through the myriad stories around the ground beneath our feet,” as the event invite puts it.
Through immersive spaces like this one, interactive installations and multimedia artwork, Soil Stories, explores “the complex interplay between soil, life on earth and our individual and collective identities.” Additionally, as part of this six-week-long event, a collaboration between Bengaluru-based non-profit Socratus, Srinivas Vasu, aka Soil Vasu, of Sustainable Organic Initiatives for Livelihoods (SOIL), BCC, and artists Madhuri Umashankar and Deepak Nair, there will be multiple workshops, discussions, film screenings, demonstrations and guided tours, all of which will seek to “expand our understanding and perspective of the soil” as Siddharth Lakshman, Partner, BCC puts it.
From the event. | Photo Credit: HANDOUT E MAIL
Stories in soil
The seeds of this idea were sown sometime in late September last year, says Smriti Tiwari, Program Associate at Socratus. It was while conducting a citizen jury format at an event in Banswara, Rajasthan, that Tiwari and her colleague, Alok Shrivastava, met Vasu, who was doing a workshop about soil at the same event.
“Alok and I had a conversation with Vasu where he shared his dream of building a soil museum,” recalls Tiwari. While they realised that having an entire museum dedicated to soil was a farfetched idea, they “wanted to at least enable a conversation in a city like Bangalore around soil via an exhibition format that ran for a certain duration,” she says. They then got in touch with BCC, hoping to come together and create something of value, targeting this important topic, adds Tiwari. “That is really the origin story.”
According to her, Soil Stories has been designed as a way of exploring soil and all its dimensions through conversations with citizens, experts and artists across the city. “Soil, which plays a pivotal role in the recycling and replenishment of carbon, serves as a cornerstone for all living things and constitutes a critical element in the imperative race to adapt to and mitigate the effects of climate change. The health of our soil directly impacts the well-being of the planet and human systems,” she says, adding that the urgency to recognise and restore humanity’s multifaceted connection with soil becomes evident in the face of the climate crisis.
“Active engagement with diverse citizens is critical in building a collective understanding of where we and would like to go, as a society, using soil as a medium,” says Tiwari, who also hopes that the exhibition will rekindle in people a sense of wonder and gratitude. “The immersive spaces we have created with our collaborators will be fundamental in building empathy and inclusive futures in the era of complex challenges, including climate change,” she believes.
The 15-odd exhibits, capture various aspects of soil, including pedogenesis or soil formation, the difference between sand, silt and clay, the impact of vegetation on soil erosion, soil diversity and much more. | Photo Credit: HANDOUT E MAIL
At the exhibition
Siddharth Lakshman, who recently led a guided tour of the exhibition on its opening day, January 14, talks about the rationale behind Soil Stories. “Soil is something that could mean something different to each of us,” he says, listing out the numerous associations different people could make with soil: dirt, home, ecosystem, even a forest. “But really, it is so universal, so critical, and so vital to all life. In some sense, we have diluted it to become a mere resource from which we can derive several things that we use every day, failing to recognise that there are such deep relationships that we already hold,” he says. “The idea of this exhibition is how we can remember that.”
The 15-odd exhibits, capturing various aspects of soil, including pedogenesis or soil formation, the difference between sand, silt and clay, the impact of vegetation on soil erosion, soil diversity, soil biology, and the connection between soil and female fertility, largely fall into three major buckets. While it starts by looking at the physical and physiological nature of the soil, offering a refresher on what we know about it and expanding on its importance, components and diversity, looking at its biology is another key element in the storytelling. “Soil is thought of as inert and dead,” he points out. Yet, this is simply not true. “One tablespoon of soil has more organisms than there are humans on earth,” he says, referring to them as “the unsung heroes of the soil.”
The very word ‘culture’ has its roots in the Latin word ‘colere’, which means to cultivate or tend to, says Lakshman who hopes expanding understanding of soil will lead to people discovering a more harmonious way of living. | Photo Credit: SPECIAL ARRAGEMENT
Last but not least, Soil Stories also lingers on the cultural aspects of soil: the philosophy, spiritual enquiry, and socio-economic aspects associated with it. The very word ‘culture’ has its roots in the Latin word ‘colere’, which means to cultivate or tend to, he says, pointing out that historically there is an innate correlation between culture and soil. “Everything we use in everyday life can be traced back to it. We spend our lives on it and return to it,” says Lakshman, who hopes that having an expanded understanding of soil will lead to people discovering a more harmonious way of living. “It is about the well-being, not just of individuals but also society, human systems and eventually, the planet.”
Soil Stories is be displayed at Bangalore Creative Circus till February 25th between 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., Tuesday to Sunday. Entry is free. To know more, follow the BCC Instagram handle (blrcreativecircus) or log into www.blrcreativecircus.com/events.
Published - January 17, 2024 09:00 am IST
