EXHIBITION
February 8 – 24, 2023
Salon Walls, Campbell Hall, UVA School of Architecture
GALLERY TALK + RECEPTION
Thursday, February 9, 2023
Corner Gallery + Salon Walls
5pm (ET)
How might we dwell with the soil? Iceland has one of the world’s most severe histories of desertification. Ongoing restoration efforts have been in progress for over 120 years.
Until the 1950s, most Icelanders lived in turf houses made of blocks of bog cut from the soil in wetlands. By the mid-20th century, concrete was introduced, and the country's wetlands were drained for more intensive agriculture. Now, as the climate continues to change, the ecology in Iceland, a land on the margins, is changing fast.
This creative investigation seeks to triangulate soil restoration through a study of mediators, companions, and focal practices—such as sheep, trees, and turf houses—to operationalize a regenerative spatial practice of care.
PERSONAL STATEMENT + BIO: THEODORE TEICHMAN
"You would probably recognize me as the person lying in the mud with a microphone pressed into the ground. The microphone and the camera are particular ways of encoding time, and they're my preferred tools for studying time. In my practice and life, I am interested in understanding time and its materialization. I use these tools and others to develop an embodied approach to building a more-than-human community as a response to polluted and toxic environments. I hold a Bachelor of Science and Arts in interdisciplinary arts-based research integrating neuroscience, biology, and music composition from Carnegie Mellon University, where I received the Steinbrenner Institute for Environmental Education Award for my multimedia sensor-based public art project and thesis, called Treehugger. In 2018–2019, I was a Fulbright Research Fellow in soundscape studies and practice at the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts for my project Listening Against (the) “Transition." During my time in Serbia I began an ongoing social practice project, Workshop for Listening and co-founded the walking-based performance collective, Grupa HOD. In 2021–2022, I was living in Hvanneyri, Iceland as a Fellow with the Leifur Eiriksson Foundation for my multimedia project: Soil Stories, Land Healers, and Dwelling in Damaged Worlds, part of which was exhibited at The Nordic House (Reykjavík) in August 2022. At present, I am a 3rd-year Master of Landscape Architecture candidate and a Graduate Fellow at the TranSci Lab at the University of Virginia."
