Our Global Farm Metric Project’s Officer, Olivia Boothman, recently took a visit to Somerset House where ‘Soil: The World at Our Feet’, is currently exhibiting in London. Reflecting on her visit, Olivia writes about the impact of overlooking the ground beneath our feet and the power of soil to better connect us to the Earth.
“ ‘Look up’ we are often told, an invitation to pause chaotic lives and cast our eyes skywards to appreciate the wonder of the world. But what if instead of looking up, we looked down?”
This was the question posed to me by the writing on the wall as I stood in the opening room of the exhibition Soil: The World at Our Feet at Somerset House.
As the curators encouraged me to imagine taking off my shoes and allowing my toes to sink into the soil, I stood there, disappointed in myself, thinking ‘when was the last time I felt the soil?’ The only memory that sprung to mind was a dramatic skid down a steep hill on a rainy day at Hampstead Heath… very Bridget Jones-esque.
I glanced around and wondered how many of my fellow gallery goers – who likely also rushed from their last meeting, hopped on the tube and navigated the mycelial network of Somerset House’s underground hallways to get to the exhibition on time – were asking themselves the same question?
I continued reading: “Is it crumbly and aerated? Does it clump together? Is it cool on your skin?” These were almost exactly the same questions I asked farmers as we carried out a VESS (visual examination of soil structure) test as part of our trials of the Global Farm Metric framework. I was astounded by the lack of knowledge some farmers had of the most basic and intuitive indicators of soil health.
With the advent of advanced laboratory soil testing, have farmers become reliant on technological tests and lost the skills of interpreting the look, feel, smell or even the sound of soil? I have sympathy with them – in my previous career as a farm vet, I would have been far more confident reaching for the ultrasound scanner to rapidly detect pregnancy than rely on physical examination and palpation alone.
“As the curators encouraged me to imagine taking off my shoes and allowing my toes to sink into the soil, I stood there, disappointed in myself, thinking ‘when was the last time I felt the soil?”
But what has been the impact of us all overlooking soil for so long?
The answer was highlighted in my favourite piece in the exhibition. In 1983, the artist David Nash cut a circular patch of turf from the Serpentine Gallery in Hyde Park and transplanted it in a field in North Wales and vice versa, taking turf from North Wales back to London. Botanists counted just three species in the field from Hyde Park, compared to 27 in the Welsh field. In 2024, artist Mike Perry decided to repeat the experiment, taking the patch of urban ground from Springfield Park, in my home borough of Hackney, and swapping it with a patch of farmland in Pembrokeshire National Park in West Wales. This time around, botanists counted 39 species in the urban turf, and only four in the Welsh turf. Of course, the amount of biodiversity is hugely dependent on what sort of farming has taken place. As the SFT recently showcased in a new film about a farm in Snowdonia, regenerative grazing practices can help to support a staggering abundance of wildlife.
I can attest to the biodiversity of Hackney’s parks. Every June, I watch – slightly bemused – selfies being taken against a backdrop of wildflowers. The photos make a splash on Instagram for sure, but I refuse to believe that the wildflowers feature for aesthetics only. I think these selfies represent people’s desire to be reconnected with nature. In the same way, I am sure that many visitors to the Soil exhibition are doing so to learn about the ‘the world at our feet’ – this matter which sustains us – and what they can do to better understand it, increasing a connection with it. The power of seeing-is-believing experiences can be transformative in engaging with the natural world, which is why the SFT is developing the Beacon Farms Network. The Network brings together sustainable and regenerative farms acting as educational platforms to inform and inspire young people and adults about the story behind their food and to get their hands back in the soil.
Although it can be easy to despair of our growing disconnect – between rural and urban, farmer and consumer, wild and cultivated, our needs and wants – the closing room of the exhibition offered a reminder that food can be the cure to all of these. We make decisions about what to eat three times a day, and our food choices matter.
Thanks to this exhibition, this weekend, you will find me in my tiny garden, getting my hands stuck in the soil!
Soil: The World at Our Feet is on at Somerset House until 13th April.
