On 24 September 2024, I returned to Schumacher College, Dartington to harvest the potatoes from the crop trial which I started there in summer 2024. It was part of my Integrated Research Practice. After the performance, a circle of charcoal remained in the soil: an archaeological art work and residuals in my body as memory.
When I planted the potatoes in summer 2024, it was with student volunteers from the college in their community garden – the Hayslip which is next to the college.
The crop trial was comparing the yield of potatoes from plants which had either been planted with bio-char/charcoal or none (control crop). The weight of potatoes harvested was measured for either cultivation – bio-char or control.
The student leading the volunteers for the crop trial, was on the Regenerative Farming degree course at the college. Even in the summer of 2024 when the potatoes were planted, it was clear that the college was struggling financially, and the course had been closed to new students that academic year.
When I returned to Schumacher to harvest the potatoes in September 2024 then the decision had been made to immediately and permanently close the college. The students were being transferred to the Eden project so as to complete the final year of the course.
It was a surprise to find that on the Tuesday afternoon that I visited, none of the students or volunters who’d planted the potatoes with me were at the college. Indeed, even finding a gardening fork to harvest the crop by myself required assistance from the remainging staff. That week, there was a short course prior to college closure – the final week.
When I inspected the land where the potatoes where planted then many had been dug up although a few plants remained. Apparently, even though it was known the students knew it was a crop trial, some of them decided to dig up the potato trial! I couldn’t undersstand why. Most likely, they suspected the college was to close? It was all ending? Maybe they wanted to spoil it – an act of defiance against the the authority of the college? Yet it was an independent project. Perhaps it was for food to eat? Hunger! Maybe, they simply didn’t care? Indeed, perhaps it was college staff or anyone else infact, who dug up the potatoes. I could only guess. Who knows!
Forking digging movement
It’d certainly been a turbulent few months since the Dartington Estate – who own the college, had almost become bankrupt in autumn 2023 and they’d entered into emergency measures – suspending activities, dismissing staff, etc. I had attended a week long course called Re-imagining Climate at the College that summer. I also knew some of the staff from an open lunch series which they’d hosted there.
Nevertheless, faced with the crop trial as it was, I decided that the loss of potatoes was not unlike losses which might occur due to predation by ‘pests’ or disease and so any crop – no matter how small – was still a result. But maybe not one which I’d expected. So I dug.
Performance
Even by the end of the summer, the student garden in the Hayslip was becoming overgrown but there were still the vestiges of summer including flowers. Mine was a solo performance digging the potatoes although there was a friendly robin which visited me.
There were two rows of potatoes which had been planted in concentric circles. The area between the two crops was not clearly demarcated. I had suggested that straw was laid around the potato plants but this hadn’t happened. But looking at the soil as I dug then I could see the soil with the biochar/charcol in it, and soil without so the boundaries of the two crops: those with biochar, and those without (the control) were discernible.
I started digging the outer circle which had the control potatoes – no biochar in the soil – and proceeded anti-clockwise until the circle or ring was complete. Thereafter, I dug the central circle. I had two paper sacks for the potatoes which I harvested. Some poatoes in each but very small potatoes and very few of them.
At the end of the performance, there was a circle of dug earth – with its rich red brown colour, and the green of surrounding vegetation. The photographs I made, showed the result: a circle of earth.
Remains
The circle of earth which I dug will soon be covered with plants – for the soil is a seed-bank, and those seeds will germinate and grow over the dug earth.
But under the surface, there will be a circle of charcoal. A reminder of the movement which created it. An enduring art work which will be unseen.
But we know it is there, and knowing is seeing.
Afterthought
The idea of an invisible dance or an invisible sculpture is described in this previous article.
I suggest that the circle of charcoal which is buried in the ground at the Hayslip is an ‘invisible sculpture’ or a form of land art – one which is less about seeing and more about know. Nevertheless, it is part of the landscape.