Urban soils with a sideway glance

The soils of cities are becoming an important subject for the soil sciences, triggering revisions in their usual modes of research and concepts. One implication of this is the resort to the 'ecological engineering' of soils, framed as a research in soil processes through the active making of soils from scratch. In this, several voices from inside the Soil sciences call for a move from descriptive research to open-ended experimentation. A similar move has also been called for in anthropology. Ingold, notably, suggests to revive the 'craft of anthropology' (2008), encouraging anthropologists to participate in the carrying on of life through craft and experimentation, rather than restraining to retrospective accounts of its unfolding dynamics. How, then, can turns towards making resonate between the practices of soil scientists and those of the anthropologists that attempt to study them?

In this paper, I present a collaborative experiment between artists, anthropologists and soil scientists that was carried out in a series of residences near Paris between 2015 and 2016. The residential sessions consisted in a continuation and speculative exploration of the questions raised in both the soil sciences and anthropology in an experimental, creative way - addressing the intertwinement of human and soil becomings from direct engagement with them. The paper addresses how such experiments can be a research process, aimed at exploring the world 'with a sideway glance' (Ingold, 2008). The paper concludes with open questions on where anthropological investigation through art making might play a role in the future of disciplinarities.