Workshop

Guests: Victoria McKenzie, Jasper Griepink en Radical Roots

In this two part workshop, Victoria McKenzie and Jasper Griepink invite you to first tune into a meandering discussion about soil, the sacred, futurism and the notion of ‘manifesting’ critically. Secondly, we will engage and center in on how we come to know and conceptualise soil, being and future. We ask what it means to pair the terms ‘future’ and ‘soil’ whilst also considering a future for whom, and what do we mean when we say soil? It is perhaps a contradiction to pair ‘future' and 'soil’, seeing that the current trajectory of violence and capitalism seems to exclude soil from our future. According to the UN’s Food and Agricultural organisation “The world could run out of topsoil in about 60 years, if we continue to degrade soil at the rate we are now”. At the moment of writing, only about 3% of soils on the globe are still arable for food production, of which 1% is currently dealing with pollution. Solutions such as hydroponics include agriculture, without soil. Which makes us wonder: what are the problematics that arise when we create a world without the thing that creates and feeds us?

If the future is a space grounded by the past, then how do we interrogate systems, ways of being and uses in which our partnership with soil is collaborative? How do we re-conceptualise the being of soil as a sacred and multi-species spatiality? What are the ways of knowing, speaking and being with soil — storied ways, that demand new language and practice, in which care, compassion and love are grounded in a living and democratic system of biodiverse practice? We will ponder, question and discuss these considerations, and ultimately enter into a ceremonial space wherein we will collectively create and charge a batch of ‘Future Soil” for us to carry forwards.

Victoria McKenzie (she/her) is an academic-activist, educator and artist. Her work focuses on the interconnections and entanglements of the Earth where the realms of the individual, collective (human and more-than-human) and systems align.

Trained in Research Architecture and Ecology, Victoria currently runs an architectural-research agency called ‘RRA’ Radical Research & Re-storying Agency which is informed by the question: “how can the precolonial past inform a decolonial future”. Both Victoria’s research and practice are grounded in the ways in which building, being and communing are connected. She has worked with a variety of architectural practices and arts institutions such us ICE Institute for Creative Exchange, Cittadellarte, Triennale di Milano, Amisacho Restoracíon, Somerset House, Forensic Architecture, and Royal Academy of Design at the Hague—to connect art, design, politics and ecology in order to continuously communicate, dream and make new futures into existence.

Handles: @ofthisearthsoil

Artist and writer Jasper Griepink (he/they) examines spirituality, ecology, gender, language and the political space between these subjects. In their recent works, Griepink operates as a hybrid between a nature priest and a sassy musician, immersing audiences in stories and multi-sensorial installations that connect the folkloric world of the druids and nature spirits with the glamour of music concerts and modern ritual get-togethers. Via participatory performances, installations, research & words they wish to forward ontological entanglements that provide more queer space for embodied eco-ecstasy and the mytho-ecological re(story)ation of the planetary spaceship. Their latest show EARTHRHRINE was a speculative and contemporary sacred space for soils, exhibited at MU Hybrid Arthouse, Eindhoven. The show questioned how soil could be seen and experienced as sacred, and how a grounded reverence for the natural world could be rekindled in critical and exciting ways.

Jasper Griepink obtained an MFA from the Piet Zwart Institute in 2013. They have made certified explorations of Somatic Psychotherapy, Reiki Healing, Permaculture Design, Natural Building, and Speculative Writing. Currently, they work as a practice tutor at the MA Ecology Futures (MIVC|St Joost) and are a curator for the manifestation RE_NATURE. They exhibited internationally at MuHKA(BE), Tidens Krav (NO), The Manse (USA), Art Villa Garikula (GE) en Te WhareToi (NZ) and nationally at MU, Goethe Instituut, Garage Rotterdam, Lustwarande, TENT, MELLY, Onomatopee, Het Nieuwe Instituut, Mediamatic, IMPAKT, Art Rotterdam, W139, 1646, Roodkapje, Museum IJsselstein and Kunsthuis SYB, amongst others.

Handles: @jaspergriepink
Website: www.jaspergriepink.nl

Every session of Earth Craft will be accompanied by a food intervention that comments upon the knowledges offered.

Radical Roots resonating with Narges Mohammadi

In Radical Roots – Resonating with Narges Mohammadi, we will explore different translations of halva in materials such as text, (moving) image, movement, and sound through a channel of grief within a small gathering. How can we, as creative beings, resonate with the empty spaces marked by grief communally?

Narges Mohammadi (she/her), is an artist, program maker, and DJ. She graduated with a BA in Modern and Contemporary Art History from Utrecht University in 2018 and completed her BA in Fine Arts at the Royal Academy of Arts The Hague. Her artistic practice stems from a position of in-betweenness – a space embedded within separated cultural histories. She makes works that embody long-lost memories, which she translates into immersive installations and sculptures. Her works, existing of simple and widely accessible materials, can be characterized by a play with fragrances, colors, symbols, and habits of different cultural heritages.

Handles: @nrgs_momadi
Website: www.nargesmohammadi.com

Radical Roots is a clay pot full of molecular memories and living experiences that produces warmth even if heated by a sterile electric stove. Radical Roots proposes wonderers, migrants, travelers, and better life seekers to gather around a portable cooking table, honoring that we all carry wisdom, we can all teach each other, and we can always learn from each other's memories and paths. Radical Roots is a space to remember and create new memories through smell, taste, sound, touch, and sight. As migrants, we want to create spaces of belonging for other migrants who have left their countries due to injustice. As migrants, we want to develop transformative justice spaces for rest, creativity, and “radical tenderness.” “We all deserve it!”

Our goal is to share the pleasure and medicine of food and the choreographies of cooking. We work to be together and take risks in communication. Radical Roots is a project for radical care / care from the roots of the rootless. We put our creative energy into building connections with each other in spaces, conditions, and times when being disconnected may seem more accessible.

Radical Root’s first edition took place in the Asylum seeker center (AZC) Amsterdam during the summer of 2022 and aims to continue working there and in other (AZCs). We stand with their struggle for asylum-seeking and claim for a world where violent borders, as we know them, may be abolished.

Radical Roots Project

Designed and co-produced by Lina Bravo Mora http://linabravomora.com
Co-production and sound work by Mayis Rukel https://www.mayisrukel.com
Commissioned and supported by Stichting de Vrolijkheid: https://vrolijkheid.nl

Radical Roots x Earthcraft

Radical Roots:Lina Bravo Mora (she/they) (32), Bogotá, Colombia, based in Amsterdam. I'm a queer intersectional feminist with a backround in anthropology and worked as an artist and conflict tranformation facilitator. I'm currently coursing the MA in Ecologies of Transformation at the Sandberg Instituut.

I'm learning about somatics, Nervous system regulation, and trauma-informed research, and I am integrating these into my work. My main interest is finding paths for the creative construction of Peace cultures through carefully exploring "non-innocent entanglements” with our territories and histories. I work on creating spaces and experiences for nourishment and rest. I work with material storytelling creating installations, lecture-performances, videos, and workshops/laboratories for diverse communities.

Radical Roots: Mayis Rukel (he/they): I’m a Turkish artist, writer, film and performance maker with a background in politics, literature and philosophy. Currently based in Rotterdam.

My works are my methods of cultivating survival in the afterlives of colonialism, towards healing, liberation and abolition. Among many of my sources, humour and vulnerability shape my narratives often; supporting movement through the pain that comes with daring to imagine the end of the carceral world and opening up to the possibilities of creating a million others based in care. ​I'm currently researching embodied social justice in my practice at the Sandberg Institute master's program Ecologies of Transformation (2021-2023), curated & led by Camille Barton. "The point is not to render ideas less complex but to make the complex clear." (bell hooks)

Handles: @mayisrukel
Website: www.mayisrukel.com