3 | Soil Testimonies is a sound installation that explores how London’s soil carries traces of human history. Drawing on a 2018 study by the University of Nottingham, the work focuses on three London sites where wartime bombings during the First and Second World Wars left lasting chemical changes in the ground. Soil samples from these locations are displayed on raised plinths and accompanied by a 15-minute sound composition made from field recordings and contact mic recordings. Rather than treating soil as static matter, the installation presents it as a living archive, inviting slower listening and reflection on resilience, care, and non-human time within the city.

The soil samples exhibited are from the following three sites:

• Gray’s Inn Gardens. (Bombed 8th September 1915, 18th October 1915, 18th December 1917, 24th August 1944)
• Hanley Street, Islington (Bombed 11th May 1941, final night of the Blitz with 1,436 fatalities in London)
• Stanhope Mews, Kensington. (Bombed between 7th October 1940 - 6th June 1941)

Rather than purely recording the geochemical data of soil this artwork considers soil as living. A macro-organism that is able to provide live feedback of a recorded history. 3 | Soil Testimonies sits alongside eco-ethical conversations and artwork, following the words of María Puig de la Bellacasa, we need to ‘make time for soil-specific temporalities’ in order to promote relationships of restoration and recovery. In the setting of the city, the work celebrates the resilience and endurance of soil against intense anthropogenic events.

The sound art installation synthesises field recordings into a 15-minute audio composition, presented alongside three plinths that elevate the soil samples to eye level, positioned above the audience. This arrangement shifts familiar ways of engaging, inviting the audience to think differently about their everyday relationship with soil as both material and medium.