A Three Days Conference at Kochi-Muziris Biennale with invitations to artists to host workshops, performances ; One Day of screenings with a final collective sharing meal for dissemination and network consolidation ; followed by two additional days of expedition in the Western Ghats.

Key Research Themes for the Soil Assembly #3 at Kochi Muziris Biennale 2026

Circular Soil Economies: Regenerative soil practices

• Circular thinking as regenerative soil practice (composting, aquaponics, etc.)
• Landscape restoration initiatives by promoting agroecology (hedges, tree planting, etc)

Multispecies Custodianship

• Communities and projects who actively maintain, adapt, and disseminate agricultural knowledge to conserve biodiverse habitats.
• Case studies that render visible the legal frameworks around multispecies projects ranging from seed production / archiving and to custodian farming practices.

Hydro Soils, From Land to Sea

• What Flows in our Watersheds: impact of agrochemicals and pollution on watersheds
• Adaptation to shifting patterns in tropospheric events, monsoons erosion to soil, flooding and water scarcity.
• Landscapes and geographies affected by human impact (mountains streams, terraces, marshy lands, mangroves, backwaters, lagoons, etc.)
• Ecotones, tidal grounds and amphibious thinking

Transoceanic Ecologies of Soil: Colonial Routes & Deterritorialization

• Ocean paths and Land paths: Global connectedness and impact of food trade historical heritage of ports and emergent trading systems – dismantling colonial navigational power
• Caring for benthic health; ocean floors and intertidal zones

Mycelial Futures: Networks of Mutual Care

• Circular Crafts, new Materials, Plastic Waste Projects
• Soil Thinking, mycelial thinking, care projects, mycorrhizal fungal degradation

Changing Patterns of Climate

• Transmodernity, postcoloniality and climate change
• Planetary turn in social sciences, monohumanism/plurihumanism and the Anthropocene