Soils Building Health
Soils: the intersection of the natural & constructed
11th Annual Urban Soils Symposium
Oct 8, 16 & 17
Thurs., October 8th, 2026
7 PM - 9:30 PM EST
Virtual
Screening of ‘Common Ground’
Free, RSVP requested
Friday, October 16, 2026
9 am - 5:30 PM EST
Fordham School of Law
140 W 62nd St. New York
Day 1: Ideation & Celebration
Registration Required
Saturday, October 17, 2026
11 am - 5 pm EST
SWALE House
Governors Island
Day 2: Soils, Art & People’s EcoSYSTEM Roundtable
Free, just show up!
RSVP requested for workshops only
Soils Building Health
Day 1: Ideation & Celebration
9 am - 5:30 pm
Friday, October 16
Fordham School of Law (140 W 62nd St., New York, NY)
The theme this year is Soils Building Health. It 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.
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.
Agenda Coming Soon
Agenda Coming Soon
Soils Building Health
Day 2: Soils, Art & People’s EcoSYSTEM Roundtable
11 am - 5 pm
Saturday, October 17
SWALE House (House 6B, Governors Island, NY)
We are excited to host exhibition and workshops at SWALE House on Governors Island for Saturday, October 17, 2026 in conjunction with our 11th Annual Symposium!
Indexical Earths Art Exhibition
Indexical Earth 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 David Brooks, Elizabeth Hénaff, Emily Houssart, friends making work, Greg Stewart, Iti Vaida, Jeremy Dennis and Vasudev Vashisht.
Soils Microbiome DNA Extraction Workshop
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.
People’s Eco-SYSTEM Roundtable
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!
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 9/24 with many more to come!
-
Doug Adams
-
Sophia Barbaria
Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Undergraduate Student, New York University Tandon School of Engineering; Research Assistant, Hénaff Lab
Soil Microbiome DNA Extraction Workshop
-
Diedre Brown
Soil Microbiome DNA Extraction Workshop
-
Elizabeth Hénaff, PhD
Computational Biologist; Artist; Assistant Professor, NYU Tandon School of Engineering
TBA (Exhibition)
-
Emilie Houssart
-
Dr. mashuru
Earth Eater; Earth Lover; Founder, Museum of Edible Earth
Works from the Museum of Edible Earth (Exhibition)
-
Rosemarie Miner
-
Heather Parrish
-
Eric W. Sanderson, PhD
Ecologist; Vice President of Urban Conservation, New York Botanical Garden
Topic TBA
-
Jim Turenne
Soil Scientist, USDA-NRCS (ret.); Founder, Jamestown Swarmchasers; Volunteer Bee Keeper; Conanicut Island Land Trust; Turenne Soil & Bee Consultant
Presentation & Tabling TBA
-
Iti Vaidya
-
Vasudev Vashisht
-
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, NYCTopic: Clean Soil and Aggregate Banking for Urban Resilience
-
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
-
LinYee Yuan
Educator; Editor; Cultural Organizer; Founder + Executive Director; Field Meridians
Topic TBA
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!