Collecting soil to create colour serves as both a practical method and a symbolic act within Making Kin Practice. It bridges land, body, memory, and care by engaging directly with the materiality of place.
By gathering soil samples from different locations, fields, gardens, ancestral lands, and disturbed grounds, it is possible to trace the layered stories of each site. These pigments become a visual archive of place-based knowledge, marking variations in mineral content, land use, and memory. It is relational and invites us to slow down, notice difference, and practice care in how we take, tend, and transform materials. Working with soil in this way reveals its healing potential, not only for ecosystems, but for human wellbeing.
Ecology of communication
Upon showing Dr Sulastri (soil expert at Udayana University) Linna’s artworks, she became animated and commented on seeing:
“the difference colour of soil and the crop that can grow there. Probably, the painting of soil profile, to see the different and the significant of each layer”
You can find more of Linna’s work here on her personal website.