Soils Building Health
11th Annual Urban Soils Symposium
Oct 16 & 17
Thurs., Oct 8
7 PM - 9:30 PM EST
Virtual
Screening of ‘Common Ground’
Free, RSVP requested
Fri., Oct. 16
9 am - 5:30 pm EST
Fordham School of Business
140 W 62nd St. New York
Day 1: Ideation & Celebration
Registration Required
Admission: $40 ($20 for students)
Lunch & Happy Hour provided!
Sat., Oct. 17
11 am - 4:30 pm EST
SWALE House
Nolan Park 6B, Governors Island
Day 2: Soils, Art & People’s EcoSYSTEM Tour
Free, RSVP required for workshops
Want to vendor, share your work, demonstrations, resources, or solicit feedback, engage the audience? Tabling is available. Posters also an option, but you need to bring your own easel. Please include size of display with your request and contact Tatiana Morin (tatiana@urbansoils.org) if you would like to bring something.
Soils: the intersection of the natural & constructed
The theme Soils Building Health explores how discovering and incorporating soil-based ecological connections within elements of daily life and urban infrastructure reinvigorates our relationship with the planet's metabolism. By acknowledging the role of soils as one of the key raw materials embodied within living systems, we can understand soils’ beneficial influence on our ordinary interactions and environment. The adoption of a whole-ecosystem approach towards the built landscape unlocks opportunities to rethink food systems, reclaim food sovereignty, and investigate soils’ immuno-protective microbiome in strengthening the health of people, their environments, and their communities.
Day 1: Ideation & Celebration
9 am - 5:30 pm
Friday, October 16
Fordham School of Law (140 W 62nd St., New York, NY)
Admission: $40 ($20 for students)
Lunch and Happy Hour provided!
The symposium is structured as a continuous experience that evolves across three sessions:
Soils Reclaim: Finding and reintegrating the foundation of terrestrial life within the city itself by demonstrating the necessity of soils and waste reclamation as a central component of urban metabolism repair.
“To your health”: Studies and stories detailing how building back soils in turn builds back ‘health’ within individuals, and across communities, economies, environments, and food systems.
Soilscape: Tying it all together as we explore various ways to incorporate soil-based systems into our infrastructure and fabric of daily life and thought; to reinvigorate “community” at every scale.
-
9:00 – 9:30 AM — Registration
9:30 – 9:40 AM — Welcome & Theme Opening
9:45 AM Session A: “To Your Health”
Joseph Amsili, PhD
Soil Scientist; Program Director and Senior Extension Associate, New York Soil Health Program, Soil and Crop Sciences School of Integrative Plant Science, Cornell CALSPresentation: How do we know a soil is healthy? Advances in Soil Health Testing, Interpretation and Benchmarking.
Doug Adams
Urban & Regenerative Agriculture Strategist; Founder, New Brooklyn FarmsPresentation: One Matrix, Underground: Lessons in Soil, Society & Systems
Jim Turenne
Rhode Island Assistant Soil Scientist, USDA-NRCS (ret.); Beekeeper
Presentation: Soils and the Bees That Live In ThemJeremy Dennis
Shinnecock Artist; Contemporary Fine Arts Photographer; Founder and Lead Artist, Ma’s House & BIPOC Art Studio, Inc.Moderator: Journei Bimwala
Clinical Herbalist; Foraging Practitioner; Educator; Nutrition Health Coach; Wilderness First Responder; Founder, Each One Carry OneDiscussion
12:10 – 1:00 PM — Lunch
1:05 PM - Session B: Soils Reclaim
Daniel C. Walsh, PhD
Senior Research Scientist, Geochemistry, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia Climate School; Founding Director, NYC Mayor’s Office of Environmental Remediation; Founder, Clean Soil Bank, NYC
Presentation: The Community-Based Soil Remediation Imperative:Building an Equitable Response to Our Urban Soil Pollution Legacy
Rosemarie Miner
Green Infrastructure Professional; Founding Principal, Our TemenosChristine Giorgio and Gabriel Vergara
Artists at friends making work design collective and material interests practicePresentation: Working with Waste: An Expanded Architectural Practice of Resourcefulness
Moderator: Marion Yuen
Biophysicist; Dirt Mover; Coalition Builder; Licensed Real Estate Broker; Co-founder, Community Gardens; Owner, Green Garden Truck; Owner, The MYA Group, Inc.Discussion
3:15 PM — Break
3:30 PM - Session C: Soilscape
Brad Oberle, PhD
Ecologist; Associate Curator, Center for Conservation and Restoration Ecology, New York Botanical GardenPresentation: Leveraging historic data in NYBG and natural areas of NYC for better legacy pollution management
Tricia Martin, RLA
Landscape Architect; Studio Design Manager, Urban Design, NYC Department of TransportationLinYee Yuan
Educator; Editor; Cultural Organizer; Founder + Executive Director, Field MeridiansPresentation: Tending the Soil, Building a Food Forest
Discussion
Moderator: Lynnette Widder
Professor of Practice, Columbia University; Author of Year Zero to Economic Miracle: Hans Schwippert and Sep Ruf in Postwar West German Building Culture; Co-author of Seeds of Diaspora5:45+ Happy Hour!!
Day 2: Soils, Art & People’s EcoSYSTEM Tour
11 am - 4:30 pm
Saturday, October 17
SWALE House (Nolan Park 6B, Governors Island, NY)
We are excited to host exhibitions, workshops and artist talks at Swale House on Governors Island for Saturday, October 17, 2026.
Indexical Earths Art Exhibition - All Day
Indexical Earths gathers works around indexicality: direct traces and one-to-one correspondence between mark and thing. Starting from situated objectivity, where truth emerges through a particular, grounded perspective, the exhibition traces how artists index relationships to materials, erased histories, geological time, and ecosystems. Each work argues that understanding requires not distance but direct engagement with the specific. Artists include Collective Scope (Elizabeth Hénaff, Heather Parrish, Leonard Roussel, Seth Wenger), David Brooks, Emilie Houssart, friends making work (Amelyn Ng, Christine Giorgio, Gabriel Vergara), Greg Stewart, Iti Vaidya, Jeremy Dennis, Marina 'Heron' Tsaplina, masharu studio and Vasudev Vashisht. Indexical Earths was curated by Rebecca Murtaugh & Walker Tufts.
Soils Building Health Companion Exhibition - All Day
The Soils Building Health Companion Exhibition is part of our 11th Annual Symposium! Artists include 45th Street Green Space, Alison Siegel, Amy Chien, Aryel René Jackson, Beyond the Bedrock, Eric Fan, Iviva Olenick, Kareena Solanki, Maura Torres Diaz, Noelani Kidder, Rachel Brown, Sam Asher, V Walton and NYCityPlanting.
Artist Talks - 11:30 am - 2:30 pm
Presentations and discussions from artists: friends making work, Betsy Damon, Amy Chien, Iti Vaidya and Emilie Houssart on their exhibits, perspectives, and practice developing the ideas around Soils Building Health.
Schedule:
friends making work: 11:30 am ; Betsy Damon: 12:30 pm ; Amy Chien: 1:00 pm ; Iti Vaidya: 1:30 pm ; Emilie Houssart: 2:00 pm
Soils Microbiome DNA Extraction Workshop - 11:30 am - 12:15 pm; 1:30 - 2:15 pm
Who lives in a handful of soil, and how do their urban lives impact our own? Join Diedre Brown (PhD Candidate, NYU Tandon) and Sophia Barbaria (CBE Student, NYU Tandon) for a hands-on session where you'll work in small teams to collect, prepare, and extract microbial DNA from soil using common household ingredients in a protocol similar to this season's microbiome research at the People's Garden. You'll leave with your own field workbook and a sense of how a soil microbiome is sampled and examined—and how underground microbial communities shape the world growing above them. No experience necessary. Held outdoors; please dress for the weather. Two Sessions: 11:30 am - 12:15 pm; 1:30 - 2:15 pm; 20 participants per session. RSVP requested.
Block Print Workshop - 12 noon - 1 pm
Come roll up your sleeves, get a little inky, and turn everyday objects into messages for a healthier planet! In this hands-on block printing workshop, we’ll use bold images to celebrate recycling, composting, clean food, pollinators, healthy soil, and sustainable living. Bring your own T shirt, tote bag or other textile item, we will also have textile scraps available to print on. Led by Abigail Schoneboom from 45th Street Green Space in Sunnyside Queens.
People’s Eco-SYSTEM Roundtable & Tour - 2:45 Roundtable; 3:45 Tour
The NYC Urban Soils Institute, together with our collaborators, will explore the unique soils and people Eco-SYSTEM of Governors Island, the work that we have developed there, and the opportunities still to come. More info coming soon! fr
Screening of Common Ground
Pre-Symposium
7 pm - 9:30 pm EST
Thursday, October 8
Virtual
Common Ground is the highly anticipated sequel to the juggernaut success documentary, Kiss the Ground, which touched over 1 billion people globally and inspired the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to put $20 billion toward soil health. By fusing journalistic expose’ with deeply personal stories from those on the front lines of the food movement, Common Ground unveils a dark web of money, power, and politics behind our broken food system. The film reveals how unjust practices forged our current farm system in which farmers of all colors are literally dying to feed us. The film profiles a hopeful and uplifting movement of white, black, and indigenous farmers who are using alternative “regenerative” models of agriculture that could balance the climate, save our health, and stabilize America’s economy – before it’s too late.
Contributors & Presenters
Current as of 10/13
Day 1: Ideation & Celebration
Fri. Oct. 16
-
Doug Adams
Urban & Regenerative Agriculture Strategist; Founder, New Brooklyn Farms
One Matrix, Underground: Lessons in Soil, Society & Systems
-
Joseph Amsili, PhD
Soil Scientist; Program Director and Senior Extension Associate, New York Soil Health Program, Soil and Crop Sciences School of Integrative Plant Science, Cornell CALS
How do we know a soil is healthy? Advances in Soil Health Testing, Interpretation and Benchmarking.
-
Jeremy Dennis
Shinnecock Artist; Contemporary Fine Arts Photographer; Founder and Lead Artist, Ma’s House & BIPOC Art Studio, Inc.
Keynote
-
friends making work
Gabriel Vergara, Amelyn Ng, and Christine Giorgio - artists at friends making work design collective and material interests practice
Working with Waste: An Expanded Architectural Practice of Resourcefulness
-
Tricia Martin, RLA
Landscape Architect; Studio Design Manager, Urban Design, NYC Department of Transportation
TBA (Presentation)
-
Rosemarie Miner
-
Brad Oberle, PhD
Ecologist; Associate Curator, Center for Conservation and Restoration Ecology, New York Botanical Garden
Leveraging historic data in NYBG and natural areas of NYC for better legacy pollution management
-
Jim Turenne
Rhode Island Assistant Soil Scientist, USDA-NRCS (ret.); Beekeeper
Soils and the Bees that Live in Them
-
Daniel C. Walsh, PhD
Adjust Senior Research Scientist, Geochemistry, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia Climate School; Founding Director; NYC Mayor's Office of Environmental Remediation;
Founder; Clean Soil Bank, NYCThe Community-Based Soil Remediation Imperative: Building an Equitable Response to Our Urban Soil Pollution Legacy
-
LinYee Yuan
Educator; Editor; Cultural Organizer; Founder + Executive Director; Field Meridians
Tending the Soil, Building a Food Forest
-
Journei Bimwala
Clinical Herbalist; Foraging Practitioner; Educator; Nutrition Health Coach; Wilderness First Responder; Founder, Each One Carry One
Moderator - Session 1
-
Marion Yuen
Biophysicist; Dirt Mover; Coalition Builder; Licensed Real Estate Broker; Co-founder, Community Gardens; Owner, Green Garden Truck; Owner, The MYA Group, Inc.
Moderator - Session 2
-
Lynnette Widder
Professor of Practice, Columbia University; Author of Year Zero to Economic Miracle: Hans Schwippert and Sep Ruf in Postwar West German Building Culture; Co-author of Seeds of Diaspora
Moderator - Session 3
Day 2: Soils, Art & People’s EcoSYSTEM Roundtable
Sat. Oct. 17
-
45th St. Green Space
-
Sam Asher
-
Beyond the Bedrock
Artists Yasmeen Abdallah, Melinda Kiefer Santiago & Katrina Slavik
Soil Profile of Our City and Selves (Soils Building Health Exhibition)
-
David Brooks
-
Rachel Brown
Educator; Interdisciplinary Artist; Community Organizer
Resistance is Fertile (Soils Building Health Exhibition)’
-
Amy Chien
Architectural Designer; Materials Researcher
Speaker; Bee Nesting Habitat Print (Soils Building Health Exhibition)
-
Collective Scope
Heather Parrish, Elizabeth Hénaff, Léonard Roussel, and Seth Wenger, explores concepts of contamination, collaboration, culture, and exploitation.
Construct I & II (Indexical Earths Exhibition)
-
Betsy Damon
-
Jeremy Dennis
Shinnecock Artist; Contemporary Fine Arts Photographer; Founder and Lead Artist, Ma’s House & BIPOC Art Studio, Inc.
On This Site: Native Long Island (Indexical Earths Exhibition)
-
Maura Torres Diaz
-
Eric Fan
Industrial Designer; Artist; Founder, Boring Objects Bureau
Multifunctional Plant Pots: Water Cooler (Soils Building Health Exhibition)
-
friends making work
Gabriel Vergara, Amelyn Ng, and Christine Giorgio - design collective and material interests practice
Speakers; Cyanotype from the Depave Project (Indexical Earths Exhibition)
-
Emilie Houssart
-
Aryel René Jackson
Interdisciplinary Artist; Educator; Curator
Bushwick Compost (Soils Building Health Exhibition)
-
Noelani Kidder
-
Dr. mashuru
Earth Eater; Earth Lover; Founder, Museum of Edible Earth
Works from the Museum of Edible Earth (Indexical Earths Exhibition)
-
Iviva Olenick
-
NYCity Planting
Climate Resilient and Local Seed Library Skillshares, Workshops, and Events
Seed Library Box (Soils Building Health Exhibition)
-
Alison Siegel
-
Kareena Solanki
-
Greg Stewart
Sculptor; Artist; Professor of Art at James Madison University
Disappearance of an Idea (Indexical Earths Exhibition)
-
Marina 'Heron' Tsaplina
EcoPuppetry Artist, Writer, Disability Culture Activist
SOIL: FIELD OF AWARENESS (Indexical Earths Exhibition)
-
Iti Vaidya
-
Vasudev Vashisht
Visual Artist, Photographer
Of/With the Garden I & East Harlem Composters I (Indexical Earths Exhibition)
-
V Walton
-
Sophia Barbaria
Soil Microbiome DNA Extraction Workshop
-
Diedre Brown
Soil Microbiome DNA Extraction Workshop
About the symposium
With soils as our common denominator, the symposium is a vibrant ecosystem of sharing and exchange. Voices come together from all sectors, disciplines and backgrounds to collaborate, and grow our capacities within a holistic understanding of soils to better our livelihoods, development, wellness and health of us and our planet.
Who should join?
All who interact and are interested in the world supported by soils. Bring your projects, ideas, research, stories, and explorations to share.
The symposia are not stand-alone conferences, but a sequel of explorations, creations, and cross pollination that repair, build, and optimize the relationship between the metabolisms that run the built and natural environments.
Soils Unite!