Saturday, October 31, 2020 at 2 PM EDT – 3:30 PM EDT
closing panel of the NYC Urban Soils Symposium

Perfect Knowledge of the Ground

Perfect Knowledge of the Ground is a knowledge propagation project by Red Dirt alum and Urban Soils Institute’s Art Extension Service member RL Martens, organized to reframe the roots of our current ecological crisis and share Black and indigenous alternatives to the capitalist and colonialist episteme.

This project originally appeared at the Washington Project for the Arts in the spring of 2020 as a virtual bookshelf, free mail-order care package (including a printed reader with selections from the virtual bookshelf and seeds for planting) and a film screening.

In Fall 2020, working with Red Dirt, a new iteration of the project takes shape as a free, virtual panel discussion at the Urban Soils Institute's annual symposium and a second pressing of the reader. Care packages are offered for a suggested donation and funds from the packages after materials + shipping go to paying the panelists and to making the packages available for low or no cost to BIPOC.

+Dr. Suzanne Pierre and Kunal Palawat of the Critical Ecology Lab 
+Blain Snipstal of the Black Dirt Farm Collective 
+Makalé Cullen of the Urban Soils Institute
+RL Martens, of Urban Soils Institute’s Art Extension Service, organizer and moderator

2nd printing of Perfect Knowledge of the Ground reader

2nd printing of Perfect Knowledge of the Ground reader

PKTG also available on the virtual bookshelf HERE

Perfect Knowledge of the Ground reader

RL Marten’s project Perfect Knowledge of the Ground sprouts a new iteration this fall. more care packages and a panel discussion. Packages contain a copy of the reader and Callaloo (amaranth) seeds. Suggested donation $25, free-$15 sliding scale for BIPOC.

Highlights from the reader include Amilcar Cabral’s revolutionary agronomy, Monica M White on Fannie Lou Hamer’s freedom farm cooperative, Robin Wall Kimmerer on beans and more.

Funds from the care packages go to paying the panelists at the NYC Urban Soils Symposium, Saturday, October 31st from 2:00-3:30pm

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NYC Soils Symposium closing Panel Discussion: Bridging soil science, agriculture, and art, this amazing panel will be discussing the roots of ecological crisis, the colonial extractive episteme, and ways of knowing the ground at odds with the Western narrative.

Panelists:
+Dr. Suzanne Pierre and Kunal Palawat of the Critical Ecology Lab 
+Blain Snipstal of the Black Dirt Farm Collective 
+Makalé Cullen of the Urban Soils Institute

Organized and moderated by RL Martens, of Urban Soils Institute’s Art Extension Service

This panel is part of the Urban Soils Institute's annual symposium.

Register online through the eventbrite link (select October 31st date) to get the Zoom link for this FREE event.



Panelist Bios:

Suzanne Pierre is the director of the Critical Ecology Lab, a nonprofit research lab uncovering the social underpinnings of global ecological change. Suzanne is a terrestrial biogeochemist and forest ecologist, a queer woman of color, first generation American, and proud New Jersey local. She is currently based in Oakland, CA, Ramaytush Ohlone Territory.

Kunal Palawat (they/them) is a research associate with the Critical Ecology Lab and graduate student at the University of Arizona, on occupied Tohono O'odham and Pascua Yaqui Lands. They are a pollution scientist who cares deeply about public health, community science, redistribution of power, and their mini-poodle Tango!

Makalé Cullen: While I’ve worked primarily in human communities documenting occupational and expressive culture, I’ve always paid attention to the multi-species context in which our cultures exist. An attention to landscape and the botanical/agricultural world has long distinguished my work with most of my projects revolving around questions of place and identity. I still work in relationship with people but mostly, nowadays, with plants and soils whose lessons are far worthier of our attention. 

Blain Snipstal is a farmer, agroecologist, and activist currently part of Black Dirt Farm Collective (also here).

RL Martens (they/them) is a transdisciplinary artist. Through writing, installation, and ceramic work they dramatize entanglements between social and material worlds. RL is a founding member of Urban Soils Institute's Art Extension Service and is based in Baltimore, MD, on Piscataway land.