EMPIRE OF DIRT
Rodda Lane Public Art Commission, RMIT 2017

Site-responsive project, exploring soil biology, reconstructed landscape as architecture, and modes of species adaptation. This installation brings art and science into conversation with the construction site of RMIT’s New Academic Street. The research involved a collaboration between artist James Geurts and environmental microbiologist, Distinguished Professor Andy Ball at RMIT University.

The light-boxes works include images made at Rodda Lane, laboratory research involving a soil sample from site, Litchfield National Park, and archival material. The sculptures migrate termite structures from the Northern Territory to colonise the Rodda Lane site.

Emerging from RMIT’s Centre for Art Society and Transformation, the project was supported by a number of partners, including Carbon Arts, RMIT’s New Academic Street’s Urban Animators: Living Laboratory program, and Lightscape Projects RMIT. The project is funded by Wonderment Walk Victoria and RMIT.