MICROBES, 2021
Inspired by the underland, soil, forests, fungi –
the worlds underground that have been here
thousands of centuries before we have, that see
and know and humbly rest quietly, watching,
waiting to be discovered. in his book
‘Underland’, Robert Macfarlane writes, "For deep
time is measured in units that humble the human
instant: millennia, epochs and aeons, instead of
minutes, months and years. Deep time is kept by
rock, ice, stalactites, seabed sediments and the
drift of tectonic plates. Seen in deep time, things
come alive that seemed inert. New
responsibilities declare themselves. Ice breathes.
Rock has tides. Mountains rise and fall. We live
on a restless Earth.".
I've always looked to the stars or around at mountains and bodies of water in wonder but the earth holds history and wisdom in its very substance, deep within the ground we walk on. Most of the ground we walk on is pavement, but walk barefoot on a grassy hill and there's this indescribable surge of energy you can feel from touching the earth with your bare feet. There's something humbling in realising that the ground holds secrets we will never know. The mountains rise and fall in greater spans of time than empires do, and we measure our decades in history by who ruled what and where and when. it does not suffice. There is more history in this world to marvel at than we will ever comprehend. And this yearning for knowledge and understanding, like the way we do when we look at the stars and study astronomy, is what keeps us going. the attempt at discovery down civilisations – the knowing we will never find all the answers but the trying anyway, and the recognition that there is beauty too in the grasping, as we reach for everything that lies beyond our grasp.
I've always looked to the stars or around at mountains and bodies of water in wonder but the earth holds history and wisdom in its very substance, deep within the ground we walk on. Most of the ground we walk on is pavement, but walk barefoot on a grassy hill and there's this indescribable surge of energy you can feel from touching the earth with your bare feet. There's something humbling in realising that the ground holds secrets we will never know. The mountains rise and fall in greater spans of time than empires do, and we measure our decades in history by who ruled what and where and when. it does not suffice. There is more history in this world to marvel at than we will ever comprehend. And this yearning for knowledge and understanding, like the way we do when we look at the stars and study astronomy, is what keeps us going. the attempt at discovery down civilisations – the knowing we will never find all the answers but the trying anyway, and the recognition that there is beauty too in the grasping, as we reach for everything that lies beyond our grasp.