Join us for a guided tour of this groundbreaking exhibition which unites visionary artists and thinkers from around the world to explore the remarkable power and potential of soil. Through a range of artworks, artefacts and innovative approaches, visitors are invited to reconsider the crucial role soil plays in our planet’s health. The exhibition delivers a message of hope and urgency, encouraging a more sustainable, harmonious relationship with the Earth—if we choose to act now.

Soil is a secret world at our feet, an ecosystem as diverse in life as our night sky is full of stars. The billions of bacteria contained in its rhizospheres do for plants what the microbes in our stomachs do for us: sustain life. Our relationship with soil is our connection to Earth itself. Without soil, there is no us.

The exhibition brings together a range of stories and responses to soil from a group of global artists, writers, musicians and scientists. Combining sensory artworks, historical objects, scientific artefacts and documentary evidence, the exhibition sets out to inspire and educate visitors about the power and the fragility of soil, its fundamental role in human civilisation and its remarkable potential to heal our planet.

Somerset House is giving visitors the creative space to think more deeply about soil’s vital and dramatic role in sustaining life on Earth, now and in the future. They hope to inspire both awe and optimism in those willing to dig below the surface of a world they only thought they knew.