07/09/2015
While traveling Gallery KLEIN will continue showing Sinem Kayacan's Fleshberry (see post below), but at the homebase(s, i.e. Puotila and Otaniemi) Gallery KLEIN is proud to present:
JEAN-FRANCOIS PAQUAY (Belgium).
Homemade Soil Potential, 2015. Plywood, stainless steel nails, glue, living handmade compost, plastic sheet, expanded clay pebbles, geotextile and optional prairie seeds, 10.7 cm x 30.5 cm x 20cm
Mule: Sue Spaid (United States)
Curator: Mateusz Salwa (Poland)
Cultivator: Max Ryynänen (Finland)
DESCRIPTION
Inch by inch, row by row
Gonna make this garden grow
All it takes is a rake and a hoe
And a piece of fertile ground (…).
D. Mallett, Garden Song
2015 has been declared to be UN International Year of Soils (http://www.fao.org/soils-2015/en). As soil is the main material used in this work, the project suits the case. The soil contains various random seeds, hence the gallery will turn into a suitcase garden thanks to the care taken by the gallery curator, or rather: the cultivator who will activate the soil potential. Because of its dimensions, Homemade Soil Potential can be regarded as a micro piece of an earthwork.
A suitcase is usually an object that travels, whereas a garden – like its soil - is immobile. Our project makes the opposite true: the suitcase as an art gallery is fixed in Finland, while the soil and the seeds have made their way from Belgium. However, the journey of the soil does not end here, for the gallery – being a suitcase after all – is portable and so is the garden, which can therefore travel around.
The portability of the garden is well expressed by the French term invented by Jean-François Paquay to describe his previous project consisting in creating small vegetable gardens planted in easily movable boxes: portager (= potager [a kitchen garden] + portable [= portable]).
The aim of this exhibition is to make a (traveling) show of the potential of the homemade soil. The crucial idea is the “homemade-ness”, which refers to a number of related issues. First of all, the soil is “made”, i.e. it results from a purposeful human interaction with nature. Second of all, it is made at home: making soil at home is nothing less than making oneself at home on the soil. Homemade soil is soil as one’s home. Third of all, the adjective “homemade” connotes “old-style, traditional and genuine”. If we think of making soil in these terms, we arrive at the idea of ecological, sustainable farming. All this amounts to the idea of an intimate relationship with soil, land and nature as one’s home.
However, even if this affinity exists everywhere, it has to be cultivated because otherwise it will remain only potential. The suitcase gallery makes homemade soil potential accessible for everyone, a portée de main.
Mateusz Salwa (Curator)
