Soil build bridges

We are developing science – packed workshops which combining theory and sensory, field learning and sensing soil with all senses: Sight, Touch, Smell, Hearing, Taste (connection food and soil). Through those workshops participants will learn, connect and feel soil in totally transformative and innovative ways and explore soil’s sounds, appearance, texture, smell, functions, changes, and living organisms. Those experiences will be transformed into the art – music concerts and painting exhibitions. Out of soil sounds and collected pigments, we will compose new songs and sounds that will be interpreted through different

We are building bridge between old generations who were so aware and were strongly dependent on soil, appreciative and protective to it and young ones, totally unaware of it, disconnected and consumed by new technologies. People emotionally connect and react best to children and elderly people. That is seed for behavior changes. We first must make tangible and emotional connections to be able to transform behavior and make systematic, long-term changes. Also, we need to enter a society with soft approach, raising awareness and creative activities that bring soil into the focus to set the ground for more complex, policy, remediation, and preservation activities. In our proposal, we are aiming to build strong bridge of past, present and future, between elderly and youth, through project activities that combine creative and participatory approaches, science based learning and experiences of soil (through all senses) that will be transformed into new artistic and creative joint expressions (music and painting) to raise awareness, engage communities, increase collaboration and make behavioral changes in the society. We are developing science – packed workshops which combining theory and sensory, field learning and sensing soil with all senses: Sight, Touch, Smell, Hearing, Taste (connection food and soil). Through those workshops participants will learn, connect and feel soil in totally transformative and innovative ways and explore soil’s sounds, appearance, texture, smell, functions, changes, and living organisms. Those experiences will be transformed into the art – music concerts and painting exhibitions. Out of soil sounds and collected pigments, we will compose new songs and sounds that will be interpreted through different channels and events to different audiences.

Commons Stewardship

In this proposal we are combining creative: visual arts (paintings with soil pigments), music (music concerts and events), narratives (different videos with storytelling about soil) and participatory approaches: participatory workshops (sensory laboratory workshops, painting workshops) and citizen sciences (experiments in nature with specific equipment and collecting data, soil sounds and pigments). Combination of those approaches actively engage different groups of community: non-experts – youth and elderly as target group, audience and performers, parents, art teachers, artists, politicians, decision makers, citizens and experts in soil and environment, to co - create in the process of learning, exploring, performing, awareness raising, community engaging, behavior changing and disseminating which builds Common Stewardships. Our basic leitmotif, around which whole idea and approach is developed, was “It is necessary for target group to, first, understand importance, purpose, connection of soil to the everyday life through all senses: Sight, Touch, Smell, Hearing, Taste to become a real stewardships who deeply feel and understand soil, to be able to create, present and transfer important, soil related messages through art and music, to the different audiences in a completely dedicated, convincing, emotional and sustainable way in order to protect, preserve, advocate and guard the soil

Reduce soil sealing / reuse urban soils

Reduce EU global soil footprint

Seeds (small, replicable initiatives)

Awareness-raising / communications

Creative or cultural events

Capacity-building (training, guides, mentorship)

In Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sarajevo city but very adaptable and replicable to other locations but also in expanded scope, different target groups etc

Public Sector

Civil Society

This idea is jointly developed between Center for energy, environment and resources, with strong soil expertise and Superar BiH, organization that has expertise in music education and social engagement approaches through creative channels.

We are hoping to get feedback from other participants and discuss this approach to be able to: improve our proposal(s), create project consortia for some next calls related to soil, share ideas and create joint solutions, projects and initiatives.