Hello all!

I have been in a low mood recently, and I wanted to find new inspiration and focus by exploring more art exhibitions, especially since I have become a member of an amateur art group that is local to me, the Ealing Art Group (a link here to the long history of this local art group), in an attempt at making new friends and connections in the arts. The idea was to go to exhibitions together, and it worked for other times, but this time I ended up being on my own: well, since I had already decided to go, I went anyway, and it was actually quite nice to have this afternoon to enjoy an inspiring exhibition!

It was called ‘Soil. The World at Our Feet’ and you can see its poster here.

And inspiring it was: I learned quite a few things about soil, its conservation, its importance, things that are done all over the world to improve soil, things that are done all over the world to destroy it, how people can use it and love it and preserve it, and see it with fresh eyes. The topic was tackled both by artists and by scientific researchers and social activists, and often the three would merge.

As you can maybe read from this explanation that meets the viewer at the very entry of the exhibition, there was a lot for lovers of the scientific in art and of the beauty of natural phenomena, from the very small of bacteria to the size of the whole Earth, passing through a lot of the rest: I managed to enjoy myself for about three full hours at this exhibition, and could have stayed a bit longer but I was exhausted and had to go back home.

I am not normally very keen about art with a very scientific inspiration, but I must say some of the works were stunning, such as these below by photographer Dr Tim Cockerill in collaboration with microbiologist Dr Elze Hesse: photographic images of bacterial growth on agar plates.

Sorry for the bad quality of some of the photos, as unfortunately the whole exhibition had very low lights, especially this part where those photos were. Of course, no flash was allowed.

There was an interesting approach to techniques and media, though it was a bit skewed towards video contributions or works that included video elements, that I personally sometime find a bit too long for an exhibition with so many artworks: some of the videos lasted up to almost 40 minutes, and I certainly could not have stayed at the exhibition long enough to watch them all beginning to end! I only managed the shortest ones.

Some of the videos were combined with installations:

I loved the wide range of techniques, there was nothing old-tradition about them:

Some artists where interested both in what is made of soil and what is in it, such as ceramist Jo Pearl. I imagine that using clay, that is a type of soil, can focus one on the importance of it, and she also seems quite interested in all the environmental issues: I met her close to her artwork and we had a brief friendly chat about the topic.

I was wondering how one would make similar shapes in felt or mixed textiles: I am sure that much fun may be had by pursuing this inspiration, but my time is limited, so maybe one day.. Some of her shapes were also in the Exhibition shop: a temptation!

I liked the use of soil as pigment as well, in this artwork by herman de vries explaining about earth pigments:

Inorganic matter had its own moment at the exhibition:

But also organic matter was represented, with the idea that soil is or should be a living thing:

There was a video by pioneer performance and landscape artist Ana Mendieta that I can not show, because photos of it were not allowed, but I liked it: it was called ‘Birth’ and it was in black-and-white. There were two earth mounds in the vague shape of a woman’s vagina, and there were gunpowder explosions or similar coming from the centre enclosed by the mounds. Well, Earth is represented as an earthen goddess by many ancient cultures, so it made a lot of sense to me.

I found the next two works by Lauren Gault less easy to understand, though they were made with materials found in the Isle of Skye that she wanted to represent or linked to it, including a wool blanket that has been restitched by the artist. Some of you may recognise the plastic buckets included in the second piece, apparently very common supplement for sheep rearing..?

I really loved these next two pieces: the first was a very organic sculpture made of beeswax on a 150-year-old found walnut tree wood, the second does not seem much to see but its magic was its scent that I loved!

I wished I could stay in front of those two for a long long time. I have always wanted to add scents to my works: is it something that any of you have tried? I wonder what is bokashi bran and how you can use it to inoculate scented soy wax into fabric? Would it work for felt? It just seems a lot of fun to be able to add this new dimension to one’s work! Maybe one day..

This other work was about fiber and how finding new ways to use natural fibers is helping people reshape and restore the environment in their area.

Have you tried agave fiber in your work? can it be used in our textile artworks, felted or manipulated? I have never tried it, but maybe now I am curious to know more about it.

There was also a Khayameya patchwork artwork by Asuncion Molinos Gordo, showing the two different types of usage of soil for food production in Egypt, seen as if by satellite: on one hand the many small rectangular shapes of smallholders who grow crops for internal food consumption using the water from the Nile as renewable source. On the other hand, the circular shapes of extensive farming in areas into the desert for international food consumption using non-renewable fossil water through sprinklers.

Another textile work was in fact made of roots! The artist grew the plants to weave naturally into a net and produced an organic fabric of a sort:

Two other artworks were exploring the link between cotton crops and exploitation:

There were of course many more artworks, but I want to finish with one that was at the end of the exhibition: ‘Soil Kitchen’ by Something & Son.

There were more bits, but you get the general idea. Then, on the other table there were recipes to make your own environmental friendly changes to soil or behaviour.

I hope that you will have some food for thought about our soil (he he, all of this talking about recipes and kitchens..).

On the same day, there was another small exhibition at the Somerset House, that I found fascinating: it was about salt and the Salt Line in the Indian subcontinent. Part of this smaller exhibition was a big outside installation of textiles from salt sacks printed in traditional patterns, representing the Salt Line, a barrier grown of spiky plants by the British to impede the access to a Salt lake to the populace, in order to keep for themselves the sale of salt during Colonial times.

Please, let us know what you thought about it! Cheers.