BEARING SOIL: EARTH’S PRECEDENCE
IN A BAG OF MEMORY
(THESIS)Exploring the agency of other-than-human entities through ecofeminist theory, autoethnography, and material experimentation. Master Thesis for Master Interior Architecture: Research and Design (MIARD).
Key words:
soil, ecofeminism, ancestral knowledge, peasant women, process of naturalisation/demonization of certain bodies, non-human agency, Western modernism, Cartesian dualism as fraud, spirituality and women,
cure-enchantment, aesthesis/aesthetics, intra-actions, relational objects/design objects, spirit/matter, biodynamic agriculture, compost and decay, temporaneity/contemporaneity, futurity.
Thesis publication exhibited in the Nieuwe Instituut (Rotterdam)
(July 2024)
Credits to:
At the heart of this research lies a critical examination of the historical and philosophical constructs that separate humanity from the natural world, particularly through the lens of Cartesian dualism. I delve into the socio-political implications of this separation, focusing on how women, marginalized communities, and non-human entities have been categorized and exploited within this framework.
The thesis unfolds in three main chapters. The first examines the intricate relationship between women and nature through archetypes and myths, tracing the evolution from reverence for "Mother Nature" to objectification. The second chapter critically analyzes these narratives using feminist perspectives, uncovering the roots of patriarchal dominance and exploring the concept of the “monstrous” as a site of resistance. In the final chapter, I weave together autoethnographic narratives from my Greek heritage with historical and theoretical contexts to illuminate the significance of traditional cultivation practices. Through material experiments with soil, I aim to contribute to a transcultural dialogue in visual arts and spatial practices, challenging the linear temporality of modernism and proposing a more integrated view of authorship.
“As I navigate through this spiral-time of memories and interconnectedness, carrying like a bag of soil personal memories of my village, the memories of my mother and grandmother, I understand how memory becomes more than a mere recollection of the past; it is a living force that shapes our understanding of the world and our place within it. It is a composition of a decayed past, a temporarily not decayed present, and an ancestral future with the memory of Earth's precedence. We have been, however, separated and uprooted from the soil and the communal in order to be at the service and the production of personhood and the self as an individual. In a now, without memory, we too have become “amnesic” and "earthless," existing temporarily, mesmerised by an endless futural projection of the new.
Is it even possible to imagine transitioning to a mindset that embraces ideas of ‘belonging to the soil’, a community, and the earth’s ancestry, where the significance of individual personhood is no longer needed? Maybe again, joy is a medium for resisting and overcoming the impoverished existence of a controlled and uprooted human body. Because there is joy available beyond the atomized self. And for me, the most radical thing we can be doing is just relating to the land and experiencing joy in the land. We are always projected toward the future, whereas joy is already constructive in the present. I prefer to speak about joy rather than happiness because it is an active passion; it is not a stagnant state of being; not a satisfaction with things as they are. As we have become “amnesic” of Earth’s precedence, we have also forgotten the joy and recreation that derive from mutual affection and responsibility. Joy experienced and shared within a community of ‘humans belonging to the soil’ can make us feel the warmth of solidarity and trust, seeing capacities growing in ourselves and the people around us.
More and more people today see that we cannot place our goals into a future that is constantly receding. Obviously, our horizons must be broader, but setting goals that we can achieve is part of a present, which can not be superficial. Maybe one way to resignify the present and future within contemporaneity is to reconnect with the soil.”
“We are always in a sort of futurism of the now, a time that is always to come and that pretends to extend itself endlessly as an infinite chronology. This endless futural projection is unthinkable for thinkers with Earth, for First Nations and indigenous philosophies. It is unthinkable for the Earth, because the Earth is finite and not endless, and the Earth is ancestral and not limited to the superficial present.”
Rolando Vázquez. Recalling Earth, Overcoming the Contemporary, Knowing Otherwise, p.59
Rolando Vázquez. Recalling Earth, Overcoming the Contemporary, Knowing Otherwise, p.59