Azucena Sánchez is a media artist from Mexico City, currently based in Munich. Her most recent work, ‘Tlalli, Conversations with Soil’, is an ongoing dialogue between nature and human intervention that focuses on the profound connection that gardeners share with their land. The piece consists of visiting different self-sustainable gardens across cities like Weimar, Mexico City, and Madrid. Through soil chromatograms and (eco)poetics, the piece shows us that with concrete actions from individuals, we can create a true change in our society and promote justice and equality through sustainability. Tlalli invites us to reflect on the political and economic ramifications of agriculture, food consumption and storage. It focuses on permaculture within cities and the ecological restoration of forgotten green areas.
Building on this piece, Azucena wants to explore the possibility of having a conversation with soil by creating an interactive system where the soil itself plays an active role in a dialogue. Using sensors to measure humidity, movement, or resistance, the system would trigger words from an existing (eco)poem, which would then ‘listen’ to response and answer back, creating a back-and-forth exchange fully dependent on the soil’s temporality.
The system needs to actively listen and respond, making the interaction feel like a real-time conversation and turning the piece into a performance between human and soil. Azucena is interested in learning from fellow artists at PIFcamp, especially those working with sound, performance, and technology, to develop this dialogue into a live experience. Her goal is to experiment with ways of making this exchange more immersive, while combining poetry, technology and the more-than-human world.