The Patterns Beneath Us

Our project explores the deep, often unnoticed connection between humans and the Earth through sensory exchange. Soil is not just passive ground beneath us. It reacts, communicates, and holds memory.When we press our hands into the earth, it does not stay silent. It responds through temperature shifts, textures, scents, and colors that bloom after contact. Acidic soil lingers as a metallic taste. Rich, healthy soil hums under our fingertips. Polluted soil sends a quiet warning, tightening in the chest, creeping in as nausea. These sensations are not random. They are messages, a language we feel rather than hear.Through this project, we reveal soil as a translator. It turns environmental history into sensory data that we experience not just physically but psychologically. By merging human perception with soil’s language, we uncover soil as more than just dirt beneath us. It is memory. It is history. It is data. What we touch, in turn, touches us back.

Team members: 

Eliza Lewis (RMIT Melbourne)

Tran Nguyen Nha Duong (RMIT Vietnam)

Nhu Ngoc Tam Nguyen (RMIT Vietnam)

Ariadna-Madrona Balcells Moline (Elisava)

Paula Segura García (Elisava)

Eugenia Lopez Delgado (Elisava)