A Moth in the RoomA Moth in the Room

Bearing Soil explores a multifaceted connection to the land through personal, historical and feminist lenses. It demonstrates how memory transcends mere recollection, shaping our perception of the world and our ways of world-making.

In this work, a bag of soil harvested from a riverbed in the artist's ancestral village is transported into the gallery. Made portable through fabric coverings and sun-drying methods, the soil is rehydrated upon arrival in Rotterdam. Reviving soil as a carrier of memory, the work amplifies the marginalised voices of the earth and a collective identity closely tied to it. By intersecting individual stories of displacement with broader societal issues, the project contemplates identity, memory, authenticity, and the human quest for belonging. It navigates memory as a blend of a decayed past, a temporarily-not-decayed present, and ancestral futures.

Artemis Mitsiou is a research-oriented spatial designer of Greek origin holding a bachelor's degree in Interior Architecture from the University of West Attica, GR. Her work at MIARD looks to disrupt dualistic and hierarchical ways of thinking from an intersectional feminist perspective. Deeply interested in the potential agencies of matter, with a focus on the memory of land, her work honours ancestral knowledge, aiming to open up a larger transcultural dialogue in the context of visual arts and spatial practices.