if the soil speaks by rym

ارض حريه كرامه وطنيه land, freedom، collective dignity a slogan that has been with me for a long time, since the revolutionary moment in Tunisia in 2010, when we raised it in the protests, wrote it on the walls, banners that we held high, we sang and shouted it, it recurred in our writings, in our conversations, in our dreams of the sovereignty and independence of our lands. today I see, we see, houses bombed, falling down, turned into dust, piles of stones, dirt. the land carries it all, embraces the decay and transforms it. Down there, other times lie, invisible, suspended from the narratives of control and structures of oppression that dominate the realm above. in the past semester, perhaps even years, I have turned my attention to the interstices in cities that have been created, or rather overrun, by the political programming of urban spaces. They have become areas that have no specific function, no specific production value, no active role in the web of trajectories, signals, instructions, restrictions, power relations... they are just there immanent I like to go there, to step aside from the flow of traffic, to stand in the in-between corners that people hardly look at. I am always wandering, wondering how I can inhabit them, reconvert them, activate their performative potential, claim other times and relations that neutralise or reverse the dominant narratives around me. I took the act of strolling as a ritual, a method. I looked and all I found was dirt, soil, biomass, decaying debris, stones inhabited by microscopic organisms, a complex stratum composed of various "others". everything felt connected and embedded in itself. robert smithson wrote in an article: "the city gives the illusion that the earth does not exist. but what I saw was a symbiosis of things we often see as separate, they grow, they evolve, they shift as a one, a network of self-organising systems. There's no master, no slave. I saw in the land a biosphere highly charged with inter-independent times, stories, histories, memories, dreams, identities, homes, belonging, roots... they are all there, traces of our past, inherited from our ancestors, and of our present, which we define ourselves. monday, half past nine, the air is slightly aggressive, my hands are cold, I am collecting soil in this area behind the railway. I haven't broken any laws I promise, I haven't jumped any barriers, I've just been following the side of the canal. I don't really choose where I stop, the ground calls me, I respond. I walked to the back of this area that has no title, I found a small door hidden behind the herbs. It opened onto a cemetery, beautiful and quiet. I remembered Michel Faucault and his concept of heterotopia, which also fascinated me during the first semester. he described them as spaces absolutely other, the city's sacred and immortal wind. I saw in the in-between spaces of the city what I call heterotopias, a land for altered human and non-human relations, friday, february is almost over. spring is shyly approaching, I could see and touch it as I bent down to collect some earth. today I had an encounter with a microscopic, translucent creature. I've observed so much autonomy and self-sufficiency through it. vivieros de castro, a brazilian anthropologist interested in the amazonian cosmologies and amerindian perspectivism (the way in which humans, animals, and spirits see both themselves and one another, an idea that suggests a redefinition of the classical categories of « nature », « culture », « super nature » based on the concept of perspective). said in one of his lectures: "the experience that each 'self' has of the 'other' can, however, be radically different from the experience that the 'other' has of its own appearance and practices." -- Lecture 1, p. 51 it seems to me that when we turn our gaze to our other, non-human selves, who perceive reality from a different perspective, within a very different temporality, we learn so much about how the world is of relative semblances, for example, what is solid earth to us is airy sky to the beings who inhabit the strata below us, and what is airy sky to us is solid earth to those who inhabit the strata above us. it is a world of relative semblances, where different kinds of beings see the same things differently. in the last few years, before coming to the Netherlands, i've been volunteering on organic farms, dynamising the soil, collecting and redistributing biomass, planting wild forests... this has taught me a lot about how what happens in the soil can influence what happens above it, in terms of self-organising structures, symbiosis and, above all, solidarity. these last few months have also taught me that solidarity comes with love, it's hard to relate to the feeling without having love as a drive.

tounes el fa7s

spring time

I am a top a hill a mere few kilometers from my friend's farm in the Guarigue

or rather Garrega

a region in the northern end of tounes

we spent the evening planting a specific type of vegetation around his fields, a proactive measure to reduce soil erosion

1the

erosion

the soil

the

erosion

the

soul

I've been out walking and field-recording for hours sometimes I take a break in the shade of a tree for a bit of rest and orientation

there aren't many big trees around here

It's mostly spiny and aromatic dwarf shrubs: thyme and rosemary

heather

5zema

5lanj

garrega is my favorite spot for foraging and enjoying the myriad of smells

After a moment of rest under the 5arroub tree

daydreams and waves of emotions wash over me.

I look around nothing seems familiar

It's as if the landscape has totally changed

I feel adrift

in an empty space of time

I wake up from my daydream of that warm memory of last spring in fahs I look around I am lost still the map says I should turn right but there's no right or left - just water and green all around me under the bridge I should be on top

Boerderij de Meent is a collectively owned piece of land where different communities interact in various

ways

autonomous

and in solidarity

one of these plots is one owned by a group of stateless refugees

with no passports or official recognition

they've found a haven for their permaculture fields on this

land

here

what comes from the soil goes back to the soil

embodying

a circular relationship

with the land

I am on

my way

to Boerderij

de Meent

to take part of a community-building of a theatre

out of sludge

it’s a warm sunny day

I am on

my bike

halfway from Amsterdam to Amstelveen

my friend whom I used to visit in el Garregua in Tunis also embodies circularity in his practice

it challenges the extractives colonial agro-industries that dry out the earth from its micro-organisms

from its soul

as an echo of the energy put in it a biological and rich vegetation grows

providing food and autonomy for this community of the refugees

on that warm spring day in el fahs

after a few adventures and an almost surreal encounter with a shepherd

i found my way back by following the 5arroub trees as they grow next to the water

i located the stream of the wadi that leads to the lake where we planted the sulla plants the night before

on that spring day in Amsterdam,

I finally found the group I had to join in Boerderij de meent plunging into a wadi to collect willow branches to use in the amphitheater building

this project led by artist Thom Bindels

aims to create a modern mud cathedral as an experiment in our relationship with time labour and the natural landscape

The collective work will result in an amphitheater made the sludge (local material collectively pulled out of the swamp) , which will be used as a debate centre, a music venue and a natural biotope

The base of this biotope will be the willow cuttings, which will take root again, and the reed will act as a filter to retain the mud and drain the water from it

amidst the interwoven moments of labour and silence I found myself drawing closer to the land I I tuned in with all my senses listened played and intervening tenderly then I paused to listen again and observe the responses of the ground I dug sludge of peat and clay from the swamp moist brown slightly clayish soil from the permaculture fields each handful teeming with micro-organic life few more feasts from the piles of dirt and decomposing plants found on the sides of the fields then then a sample from the remains of a mole's burrow in the middle of a meadow I felt good for not doing individually this time I was co -labour collaborating with the communities that inhabit the soil underneath and those who act upon its surface I was not alone

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