Unearthing the stories of land, history and identity – “Soils” Exhibition 2024
Eindhoven’s Van Abbemuseum exhibition “Soils” uses art as a way to explore a renewed connection with our land, as it is where our ancestors once lived, and where future generations will build an existence.
Creative Strategist. Passionate for design, sustainability and travelling. I enjoy researching and writing about up and coming designers, as well as design projects from around the world.
What lies beneath our feet isn’t just soil, it is a repository of stories, our current situation, and it partly determines our future. “Soils”, an exhibition presented at the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven, during the Dutch Design Week 2024, digs into these hidden layers, offering a fresh perspective on land as a symbol of memory, identity, and resilience.
This evocative project is the result of a collaboration of the Van Abbemuseum in The Netherlands, TarraWarra Museum of Art in Australia, and the research collective Struggles for Sovereignty in Indonesia. Each institution brings its unique context, reflecting on colonial histories, Indigenous displacement, and the ongoing fight for land justice.
“Soils” is anything but conventional. It is a result of 8 years of work that uses art as a means to make the connection with the Earth visible and tangible again for people. The artworks go beyond traditional mediums to explore cartography, photography, video, and even grassroots mapping, where each piece engages with the theme of soil in deeply personal and globally resonant ways, creating a rich tapestry of narratives.
Unearthing hidden narratives
Since the ground beneath us is something we all have in common, this exhibition serves as both a space for artistic expression and a platform for critical dialogue by bringing together people with different backgrounds, artists, activists, designers, and farmers, to present their perspectives around notions of caring for land, soil and sovereign territories, and to remind us that earth is the basis of our lives.
The exhibition title, “Soils”, derives from the concept of the Palestinian scholar, Munir Fasheh, that speaks of four types of soil. These are the earth soil, the communal soil, the cultural soil and the spiritual soil, and all these soils nurture us if we take good care of them.
Aiming to resonate with audiences across the spectrum, “Soils” presents an eclectic mix of artistic media, from large-scale maps and evocative video installations, as well as playful paintings and tactile sculptures, making the exhibition as diverse in form as it is in meaning.
In one of the exhibition halls, you can see a spiral made of clay and wood. This piece, ‘Casa Marunzama: a living house for rooted dreams’, combines knowledge into a hybrid result, by using the Colombian Iku community techniques for house building, and utilizing Dutch clay and wood to build it. The makers of this artwork weave their stories and knowledge with elements from the soil, creating a mutual exchange of ideas and insights.
Another highlight piece is ‘River in the Morning’, which is a work originated in an important story for Bravant and Eindhoven. A brutal story, since the Dommel is a river that was used as a means during the so-called witch hunts, to kill mainly women, but also men and children, by drowning them. This artwork is an altar to give that story a place in society as there are no places in Brabant where they can be remembered.
Taking a different perspective on the river Dommel, the ever-changing artwork ‘The Matter We Share’, showcases the chemical composition of the river’s soil compounds and its pollutants on a long canvas that, through chromatographic exposure, reveals the history of the heavy metal contamination through colourful patterned, beyond-human indices.
Similarly, a piece for reflection is the work by Diewke van den Heuvel, who brings attention to the glaciers in Switzerland, which may seem to do little with the Netherlands, but the Swiss glacier is linked to the Dutch region through a river. This artwork is a sort of plea to pay attention to the interdependence of different areas in the world while showcasing the importance of these glaciers as they might disappear.
Local reflections, global lessons
Through its many artworks and topics, the urgency of this exhibition feels quite important, to turn the seemingly ordinary into a profound subject of inquiry. While “Soils” addresses specific contexts, it also speaks to universal themes.
The works invite visitors to think about their own relationships with land, whether through urbanization, agriculture, or personal heritage. In doing so, the exhibition challenges us to consider how we can build solidarity across different land struggles.
“Soils” it’s a sensory journey into the unseen layers of the earth and the human experience. It encourages reflection and leaves visitors with new perspectives on what lies beneath.
For Eindhoven, a city known for innovation and design, this exhibition was a timely reminder that the most transformative ideas often emerge when we dig deeper—into history, into collaboration, and, quite literally, into the ground. Soils was showcased at the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven until 24 November 2024 and a manifestation of the project will continue onwards to Jogjakarta in 2025.
