Popis: |
In cities, large swathes of soil are situated within public space landscaping and “green zones,” places more regulated than the soils of conventional farmland and mainstream agriculture. With more than 50% of the world's population living in urban areas and 75% in the European Union,1 urban soils are a logical starting point to initiate a change in perception of humanity's role in the natural world at large. New systems of valuing are necessary to rethink urban soils, their cultivation, and protection. This chapter explores a new paradigm for thinking about urban soil. Inherent in its argumentation is the notion that art and artistic research has the potential to offer radical realism and contingency 2 and is as such complimentary to scientific research.3 Both scientific and artistic research are positioned in relation to one another in putting forward a new paradigm in which soil is considered an actor in its own right and which is engaged with human society in a reciprocal manner. |