Since yesterday, our latest installation Shared Grounds has been on display at Futurium in Berlin.
It’s a very special piece – one that is truly participatory. Together with Futurium, we created the framework and space for the sculpture, but from now on it will continue to grow through the contributions of visitors. Its shape and meaning will constantly evolve, depending on what people envision for their futures.
At the heart of the installation lies the theme of soil. Soil concerns us all – it’s the ground we stand on, the foundation of life itself. It nourishes us (at best), stores and filters water, and after the oceans it is the most important carbon sink in the climate system. Yet soil is often neglected – and it suffers.
To explore this vital resource, we were invited to design a new workshop format for Futurium, directly linked to the installation. The journey begins right at Shared Grounds, where participants spin an interactive wheel of fortune to determine their challenge for the workshop – and set off on their mission. The topics span a wide range of pressing issues: from water scarcity and biodiversity, to the use of machinery in agriculture, and questions of global justice.
With their mission in hand, participants move into the Futurium Lab. Here, each receives a base plate and a card set to choose scenarios for their theme – deciding whether to focus on urban or rural perspectives. Using sustainable, surprising, and aesthetic materials, they build prototypes of future visions: symbolic solutions for the soil health of tomorrow. Once completed, the prototypes are curated by the participants themselves, labeled and enriched with audio recordings so that visitors with visual impairments can also experience the ideas. Finally, the Futurium team integrates the works into the installation using a custom click system.
This makes Shared Grounds a very special exhibit at Futurium: not just interactive, but genuinely participatory. You too can become part of it – by joining a workshop and contributing your own creation. In this way, new perspectives and fresh ideas for a sustainable future of soil come to life.
The workshops are fully accessible. All materials are tactile, labeled in Braille, and available in text-to-speech formats. Dates and details are published on Futurium’s website: futurium.de/de/shared-grounds
