The Urban Soil Appreciation Initiative is a public project taking place in Philadelphia’s Wissahickon Valley Park as part of the exhibition New Trails. The project consists of a soil sorting sculpture installed in the Wissahickon Valley and an temporary “field office” sited in empty retail space along Germantown Avenue. For a more complete description of the project, read the field office introduction, or watch the video below.
Update: After tropical storm Irene saturated the soil of the Wissahickon, a second massive storm came through Philadelphia. Flooding swept away huge amount of soil in the flood plain, and along with the soil went my sculpture, which was installed along the creek. The Field Office portion of the exhibition remains on view through October 11th. It now provides a nice archive of all the types of soil that were swept downstream during the flooding!
"Soil Appreciation Unit", as installed along Forbidden Drive in the Wissahickon Valley Park.
Soil rubbings from zones C (River Flood Plain) and B (Disturbed Hillsides)
Field Office as installed in the New Trails store front
Below are several sketches from the project’s planning process, as well as a map of the park, a link to the soil-rubbing postcards that will be displayed in the field office, and video of the soil sampling research Dan and I did back in May. Video documentation of the project is coming soon.
