Soil Devil is part human & part other than human, part male & part female. It embodies a contradiction in human input to the land. It is part damaging, part nourishing.
The materials from which Soil Devil is made were gathered in a cabbage field near my home: plastic fragments and plant-based fertiliser pellets. The pellets nourish the soil and enhance its capacity to produce our food. The plastics do the opposite. Plastics used in farming steadily break down and diminish the soil. We absorb microplastics via crops grown for food; they are present in body tissue. Though that can’t be good for me or anyone else, and though I know, as many people do, that it’s vital to protect the soil, I can’t give up using plastics. Perhaps like many others, I am a soil devil.
Soil Devil has been selected for the pop-up exhibition ANIMA/ at Arch 2.3, Hackney Downs Studios, London Sept 18th to 20th 2026