INFRATERRA

INFRATERRA: Danser le sol vivant

Location of activities and scope

Château de Kerminy, 29150 Rosporden, Brittany, France

France – Festival animation

 

Executive Summary

INFRATERRA – Danser le sol vivant is a participatory art–science project exploring living soil through dance, ecosomatics, and sound art in dialogue with soil ecology.

Developed by n-Kerminy and Compagnie Héliotropion in collaboration with researcher Tony Robinet (MNHN/CNRS), the project combines scientific observation (macrofauna analysis, soil structure tests, microbial sequencing) with low-tech sonification devices and choreographic scores.

During the development phase in Brittany (France), residents, schoolchildren, farmers, and associations participate in workshops that transform soil dynamics into sound and movement. This collective process culminates in a 45-minute choreographic and sound-based participatory performance presented at the SOILSCAPE Festival.

INFRATERRA produces an open-access replicability kit (scores, educational sheets, technical plans), video documentation, and mediation tools to ensure dissemination beyond the festival. By making soil audible, visible, and embodied, the project strengthens soil literacy, fosters behavioral change, and contributes to the European Mission “A Soil Deal for Europe.”

 

Motivation Statement

Soil is both memory and future. It carries the imprint of agricultural gestures, landscapes, crops, and human imagination accumulated over generations. Yet it remains largely invisible, misunderstood, and degraded.

INFRATERRA is motivated by the urgent need to reconnect citizens with living soil — not only through information, but through embodied experience. By listening to the ground, observing its biodiversity, and translating scientific data into sound and movement, the project transforms soil into a perceptible and relational presence.

Through participatory artistic creation rooted in local agroecological practices, INFRATERRA aims to cultivate wonder, responsibility, and collective care for the living earth.

Sub-project objectives

1. Raise awareness about living soils through sensory experience
Engage local residents, farmers, and schoolchildren through participatory dance and sound workshops.
2. Create an artistic performance for the SOILSCAPE Festival
Develop a 45-minute choreographic and sound-based participatory performance.
3. Combine arts and science to make soil “audible”
Develop low-tech sonification devices and integrate simplified scientific observation protocols (macrofauna, soil structure, humus, microbial analysis).
4. Build long-term local engagement
Establish a community of “soil ambassadors” including residents, teachers, and farmers.
5. Ensure replicability and dissemination
Produce an open-access kit (scores, technical drawings, educational sheets), video documentation, and media dissemination tools.

Challenges and how they will be addressed

1. Translating complex scientific knowledge into accessible experiences
Addressed through collaboration with researcher Tony Robinet (MNHN/CNRS), simplified observation protocols, and validated educational materials.
2. Engaging audiences with little prior concern for soil issues
Addressed through multisensory approaches (dance, sound, touch), low-tech devices, short workshop formats, and storytelling rooted in local practices.
3. Accessibility and inclusion
Free participation, partnerships with social centres, multilingual materials (FR/EN), pictograms, barrier-free pathways, mobile seating, and adapted formats (20/30/45 min).
4. Ensuring scientific credibility
All educational materials reviewed by scientific partners (MNHN and AFES). Transparent sourcing and documentation included in the open-access kit.
5. Ensuring long-term impact
Creation of reusable tools, documentation (video, podcast), and dissemination through networks such as Makery and scientific partners.

Expected outcomes

Quantitative outcumes:

– ≥ 400 local participants during development phase (including 150 schoolchildren)
-≥ 1,500 audience members at the SOILSCAPE Festival performance
-3 functional low-tech sonification prototypes
-6 participatory workshops
-1 open-access digital kit
-1 video
-2 documented reuses of the methodology within 12 months

Qualitative outcomes:
-Increased soil literacy
-Strengthened cooperation between artists, scientists, farmers, and residents
-Shift in perception of soil (from inert medium to living ecosystem)

Meet the Project Team

n-Kerminy

n-Kerminy is an artistic research platform initiated by Marina Pirot (dance, performance and ecosomatic practices) and Dominique Leroy (sound art). Their collaborative work explores relationships between artistic creation and living environments through sound, movement, and sensory experience. Their research is developed from the site of the Château de Kerminy in Rosporden (Brittany), which functions as a living laboratory for art, ecology, and agriculture. From this rural site, n-Kerminy develops artistic residencies, participatory projects, and collaborations with scientists, farmers, and communities. By combining cultural production, ecological awareness, and as local as international partnerships, n-Kerminy aims to foster collective learning environments and to explore how art can contribute to the ecological and aesthetic transition, and to the care of living ecosystems.

Contact – Marina Pirot; Artist-researcher & Project Coordinator;

Email: marina@marinapirot.info

Phone: +33 6 66 65 96 3

n-Kerminy

Compagnie Héliotropion

Héliotropion is a multidisciplinary company (dance, theatre, music, digital arts). It develops creative and awareness-raising work in France and internationally, with a strong focus on encounters and exchanges — between artistic disciplines as well as between individuals and cultures. In recent years, the company has developed research exploring unconventional performance spaces in order to create new relationships between performers, environments and audiences.

Contacts

Clotilde Tiradritti – Choreographer;

Email: info@heliotropion.fr;

Phone: +33 6 63 89 82 79

Patrick Matoian – Musician;

Email: patrick@matoian.fr;

Phone: +33 6 83 30 08 37.

Facebook. 

Compagnie Héliotropion