Soil Art

Soil Art from Nantesbuch and the Network demonstrates how art can change our perception of soil. Installations, photographs, performances and other artistic works make visible, audible or palpable the things that otherwise often remain hidden – from life underneath our feet to issues of nutrition, utilisation and landscapes.

Note: Works identified with #homegrown were created at or with the participation of the Foundation or were premiered in Nantesbuch.

Homegrown

Soil Console

Marcus Maeder, Installation, 2023

In an installation that mimics a soil profile, a variety of soils and their inhabitants encounter one another. Listening experiences allow visitors to experience the acoustic diversity in the soil.

Homegrown

Microbiome Art

Noah Solleder, Artwork, 2025

Using microbiome analyses from various soils in Nantesbuch and other locations as a starting point, the artist created five paintings, each referring to a specific cultivation practice or soil condition. With support from Michael Schloter (TUM) and Karl Manias (Alganize).

Homegrown

Work: honey&bunny – Earthly Manners – Resource: Food Culture

Eat Art Installation, 2025

In cooperation with our gardening team, the artists sowed and planted 42 long beds with edible cultivated plants. The soil and plants were placed on all of the dining tables, and guests could flavour their vegan dishes with the leaves, flowers and fruits.

Further Projects

Founded in 2011 by Stephan Lux and Barbara Geiger, this theatre project brings endangered native animals onto the stage. It focuses not only on animals that are currently endangered by widespread agricultural practices, such as the earthworm: other species include the barn swallow, the nightingale, the herring, the wood grouse and the freshwater pearl mussel.
The subject of this video installation is the constant changes in the structure of rivers, which shape the landscape over the course of centuries through erosion and sedimentation. Based on research data, algorithms simulate the movement of rivers and their banks. For the background music, an AI system was trained by means of piano improvisations to specially compose pieces for the installation based on values such as the length, curvature and junctions of each river.
Solitary trees are autonomous ecosystems where various species of insects settle, along with lichens and other symbiotic communities such as mycorrhiza. In her project “SOiLITAIRE”, Babette Brühl examines soils surrounding solitary trees by means of soil chromatography and places the results in relationship to photographs of the trees and their histories. Over the course of centuries, the soil shapes the tree and the tree the soil, just as the landscape and its histories shape human beings.
Through the sonification of biological data from local plants, this art and sound project establishes an emotional connection to certain endangered plants and ecosystems. The sounds that are produced reflect the plants’ individual biological processes, drawing attention to often hidden forms of natural communication and processes. The project was first realised and premiered in Nantesbuch in 2024.
Anagama ceramics are created using a traditional Japanese wood-firing method. Through firing at temperatures of over 1200 °C, the interplay of airflow, ashes, smoke and embers produces natural colours and glazes in unique structures on the unglazed ceramic pieces. Thus, every piece is one of a kind – a piece of earth that has gone through fire.