Soil Breathes is a portrait of the region’s soil.

An installation from artist Sophia Dacy-Cole, this exhibition utilises audio-visual and tactile components to explore the scale of soil. Microscopic images, recorded sounds, and smells were all collected at the property in Wamboin, Australia where the artist currently resides, just northeast of Canberra. The images were taken from tablespoons of topsoil, dug out of the humic leaf litter layer, and photographed under the scope while still wet. The sounds were taken from that same layer: the microphone buried between layers of damp soil sedimentation.

According to the AIATSIS map of Indigenous Australia, Wamboin sits under Ngunawal traditional custodianship. The map also suggests close borders with Ngarigo, Gundungurra, Wiradjuri and Yuin mobs. There is also a Ngambri land claim over the region. This is loved and known earth. In the years following colonisation, 4.4 billion tonnes of topsoil have been lost across Australia, mostly due to sheep, cattle, and other European agro-practices.

Image:  Sophia Dacy-Cole, humus, human, 2023, micrograph.  Courtesy Sophia Dacy-Cole with assistance from Daryl Webb.