soil chromatograms and organic soil samples/objects
We rely on the ground beneath us. The ground carries us and carries records of various happenings but also potentials.
Walls are option. The ground is a necessity. We share it with our fellow human beings but also with a multitude of other species.
Earth chromatography makes it possible to map the connections, encounters and influences within soil. The different patterns, colours and textures provide information about the nutrient content and health of a particular soil sample. Past impacts and the remnants of a soil's history are made visible, but at the same time, a chroma image also shows the potential possibilities for the future of the area from which the sample was taken. The series consists of different chromatograms, together with their soil-, water- and other samples of organic material collected from different locations within Vienna. The soil is seen as an actice collaborator in this project and in its own way it portrays the connections and transmissions between past, present and future, all of which are recorded through it or within it.
The samples were collected in urban areas such as the inner city, tree grates along roadsides or the Danube Canal, but also in outer districts such as the Ottakringer Wald or the Lobau. It is less a strictly analytical process that is carried out here than a generally curious and joyful approach to one's own environment and what forms of expression it can take. The scouting and collecting -both of knowledge about the environment and the physical search and collection of the materials involved and the conversations and encounters that occur along the way- is both a connecting element with the city, its human and non-human inhabitants, as well as a part of a ritualistic working process that integrates the collected materials as artefacts in the series. These earth chromatograms invite a dialogue and exchange that leads from one question to the next, always allowing for new connections and associations.
