Warsaw Soilcentrism

Warsaw Soilcentrism: Urban Soil Encounters

Location of activities and scope

Warsaw, Poland, Workshop

Poland – Festival animation – Workshop

Executive Summary

The project envisions a series of free, open interdisciplinary workshops held at the Cooperative Farm MOST in Warsaw. We will invite artists, gardeners, biologists, soil scientists, musicians, storytellers, body-workers, and non-human inhabitants of the soil to co-create the experience. The workshops will be participatory and inclusive, aimed at a broad audience and open to individual exploration and sensory engagement with the soil. We will employ storytelling, podcasts, scientific experiments, ceramics, somatic movement, and singing, interweaving artistic activities with knowledge about soil, organic matter cycles, regenerative farming, composting, and more. The culminating event will be a communal feast featuring the farm’s harvest, accompanied by a presentation of the workshop outcomes. An additional result will be an educational publication titled “Soil Education Handbook.” This project aims to enhance ecological knowledge and sensitivity, foster an emotional bond with the soil, raise awareness of its crucial role in life and climate, and encourage individual action to protect soil life.

Motivation Statement

Soil is a vibrant microcosm, the living fabric of the Earth, a world both intimate and concealed beneath our feet. Its well-being underpins life on our Planet and ourselves. Understanding soil’s structure and life cycles grounds us with rootedness and belonging. Formed over millennia from decomposed organic matter, soil remains a complex, biodiverse ecosystem vital for nourishing plants and sustaining harvests. Yet, soils worldwide face degradation from urbanization and unsustainable practices.

At MOST farm in Warsaw on 3.6 hectares of former allotments, we embody a retrofuturistic vision redefining urban life by integrating soil and food cultivation into the city fabric. Operating as a cooperative and living lab, we explore soil’s role as a living system, innovating agroecological and circular economy practices. This place fuels our growing commitment to soil health, sustainability, and urban resilience, a true partnership with nature that inspires lasting change.

Sub-project objectives

The project Warsaw Soilcentrism: Urban Soil Encounters envisions a series of free, open interdisciplinary workshops held at the Cooperative Farm MOST in Warsaw. Through activities such as storytelling, podcasts, scientific experiments, ceramics, somatic movement and singing, we aim to raise awareness of soil degradation, organic matter cycles, and the dependence of soil quality on organic content, emphasizing emotional engagement to view soil as a vital, dynamic ecosystem essential for ecological balance and human survival.

Challenges and how they will be addressed

In Poland, the topic of soil remains largely overlooked, with agricultural practices that are harmful to the soil leading to infertility, wind and water erosion, loss of the humus layer, and declining biodiversity. Soil degradation leads to biodiversity loss and reduced yields. Consumers, mainly urban residents, often unknowingly contribute to these negative changes through their lifestyle and consumption choices. Moreover, people are cut off from nature; they do not see themselves as part of the ecosystem.

By meeting artists and experts, and through the experience of engaging with the soil during the workshops, we hope to restore this lost connection. Understanding that soil is a living biostructure hosting billions of microorganisms, which maintain fertility, regulate water cycles, and store carbon (CO2), is key to protecting and restoring this precious resource. Direct contact with soil has a positive influence on our well-being and mental health, as does building relationships within the proposed workshop model.

Sensory workshops that utilize touch, sound, and taste break down communication barriers and foster emotional connections to the soil, while practical training supports gardeners in adopting sustainable practices, such as mulching and reducing the use of peat. This approach effectively reaches varied urban groups.

Expected outcomes

● Elevate participant awareness of soil’s biological complexity and its crucial role in sustaining ecosystems.
● Cultivate an emotional and intellectual connection with soil, reinforcing human stewardship as an integral part of soil’s life cycles and planetary health.
● Promote regenerative practices that support soil biodiversity, resilience, and organic matter cycling within urban environments.
● Inspire adoption of sensory, participatory learning to dissolve intellectual barriers and deepen experiential understanding of soil’s dynamic processes.
● Establish an enduring educational venue where knowledge of soil life and cycles converges with artistic and community engagement.
● Foster a holistic sense of environmental responsibility that encompasses soil care, erosion prevention, and the restoration of fertility as shared human obligations.

Meet the Project Team

MOST Cooperative

The MOST Cooperative Farm is an urban farm run by the MOST Cooperative in Warsaw. We operate on the site of former allotment gardens, which have been urban wasteland for the past thirty years. We manage an area of 3.6 hectares, a third of which we have designated as a wildlife zone.

We operate in three areas:
• growing and processing food,
• educational and social activities, and
• incubating innovation.

We practise agroecological farming, organise workshops and actively participate in discussions about the future of cities. We regard urban agriculture as an integral part of a sustainable city. We treat the farm as a legal entity – we refer to it as a ‘natural person’, which, in accordance with our statutes, has its own representative on the Supervisory Board.

We are a diverse collective – academics, gardeners, technologists, parents, designers and educators. We are united by a desire to work towards a fairer future, rooted in a specific place.
Contacts – Julia Krzywicka, Agata Dudek-Wojewoda.

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MOST Cooperative