“Worlding Soils” public lecture series

Mine, blast, dump, crush, extract, exhaust, are the syntax of modernity, as noted by Lewis Mumford, a visceral vocabulary useful to describe the destructive power of capitalism over the soil. Mine, referring both to the physical site and a property relation, sums up this power perfectly. While mines are just the starting point of a commodity chain that understands soil as a mere resource, this chain extends across vast distances, resulting in the transformation of economies related to minerals into a truly planetary phenomenon. Such landscapes of extraction—whether former or active—continue to shape material conditions of territories, soils, and communities who inhabit them. The public lecture series “Worlding Soils” centres soil—a system commonly overlooked in architectural discussion and representation—as its subject, matter, and site for the analysis of the history and evolution of capitalist extraction, and projection of solidary and shared futures of co-existence.

Organised by: Marija Marić, David Peleman, and Cesar Reyes Nájera at the Master in Architecture (University of Luxembourg) and hosted by luca—Luxembourg Center for Architecture and Cultures of Assembly. The lecture series will feature guest lectures by Mio Tsuneyama, Paulo Tavares, María Puig de la Bellacasa, and Marina Otero Verzier.

Mio Tsuneyama: November 14, 2023, 5:30pm CET 
Paulo Tavares: November 21, 2023, 6:30pm CET 
María Puig de la Bellacasa: December 5, 2023, 6:30pm CET 
Marina Otero Verzier: December 19, 2023, 6:30pm CET

All lectures will be streamed online via the following link.

More information about the lecture programme could be found at websites of Master of Architecture and luca.

The lecture series are organised as part of the design studio “Worlding Soils: Caring for Soil Communities in Minett,” led by Marija Marić, David Peleman, and Cesar Reyes Nàjera at the Master in Architecture, University of Luxembourg.