The project is led by a small team and supported by the Foodscape Collective. It is a joint venture between Aerthly and Potato Productions, and its lab-based soil tests are made possible by the National Parks Board.
Meet the backbone of the team.
Aditi’s journey in Anthropology led to a deep exploration of food and agriculture. She has worked on farms since 2012, spanning the US, India and now Singapore. She’s grown food in the ground and greenhouses, on rooftops and verticals racks. A big believer of food and farming as equalizers, she’s been teaching and designing engagement programs on environmental education. Most recently, she’s writing curriculum for the Soil Regeneration Project, with the intention of directing conversations from silos to soils and social-soil communities.
Toh Han Jing is a soil lover who believes in growing, cooking and trashing consciously. Her green journey took off when she learnt about the terrors of food waste and the impacts of environmental degradation on those living in peripheral countries.
Han Jing is the founder of Little Green Chef, where she conducts workshops and talks on composting and growing native edible plants for children and adults. As an educator at heart, she believes that no-one is too young or too old to make a positive difference to this Earth.
Huiying Ng explores links between urban agriculture, open/welcoming spaces for new imaginations of urban life, and community resilience. She is a founding member of the Foodscape Collective, and TANAH, a nature-food duo, and a member of soft/WALL/studs. From late 2020 she will continue her research to consider agroecology in Southeast Asia and its capacity to respond to the environmental impacts of infrastructural projects in the region, as a doctoral researcher at the Rachel Carson Centre for Environment and Society in Munich, Germany.
Vivian lives in a world without strangers. Her practice of social artistry uses food and community-building as media, bringing people together to explore new ways of being. Inspired by her experience of the Transition Town community while serving as a yoga instructor in Los Angeles, California, she builds community for regeneration and resilience. Vivian founded the Garden of L.E.A.H. - a conscious-living space in Chiang Mai, where she holds space for gardening, natural building, mindful eating and co-living. In 2020, she co-founded Conscious Connections - an enterprise dedicated to heart-crafting spaces for well-being, in Singapore. She is a core team member of Foodscape Collective.
Co-researchers and Fieldworkers
We take co-research seriously, as a method of working with and alongside. In order for systems to change, we believe our systems of knowledge production have to, too. Co-creation and co-research take new practices of listening, sensing, and co-operative work. Our fieldworkers work alongside the Soil Companions, recording and documenting the “tacit knowledge” that is often exercised and used in intuitive ways.
Toh Han Jing is a soil lover who believes in growing, cooking and trashing consciously. Her green journey took off when she learnt about the terrors of food waste and the impacts of environmental degradation on those living in peripheral countries.
Han Jing is the founder of Little Green Chef, where she conducts workshops and talks on composting and growing native edible plants for children and adults. As an educator at heart, she believes that no-one is too young or too old to make a positive difference to this Earth.
I enjoy nature and ulu ulu kampong walks. I feel good that it is healing, helping me to relax and off load my work stresses.
I witnessed seniors' vitality and happiness when I brought them into garden for harvesting, when they were reluctant to do exercises in the Elder Day Care that I used to worked.
Nature teaches me life philosophy and it is important to return gratitude for things we take from nature, and the early nation-building seniors of Singapore. I can't do BIG enough but I do by returning nutrients from food scraps in vermicomposting, into growing food to share and ornament flowers to add colors in life.
Unsociable pro-social, non-tech endorsing techie animated by ethics, climate, and food systems. Diving into regenerative soil-food-web-based work, grounding actions in community work, thinking a lot. Takes maybe-too-detailed field notes (link to come!) and grows edible green stuff. Enjoys dry wit more than smiley faces :))
In a former life, Jun Qi was a senior software developer and tech lead at an international software consultancy, before deciding that society probably needs less techno-utopian, techno-pragmatic, or just plain tech-bedazzled types, and more idealistic bums.
Huiying Ng explores links between urban agriculture, open/welcoming spaces for new imaginations of urban life, and community resilience. She is a founding member of the Foodscape Collective, and TANAH, a nature-food duo, and a member of soft/WALL/studs. From late 2020 she will continue her research to consider agroecology in Southeast Asia and its capacity to respond to the environmental impacts of infrastructural projects in the region, as a doctoral researcher at the Rachel Carson Centre for Environment and Society in Munich, Germany.
Vivian double up her role in the project as a fieldworker, expanding her passion for working and learning with soil from her farming experience in her farm, Garden of L.E.A.H. Eating fresh from the farm where plants grow natural on healthy organic soil, she experienced the embodiment of earth that supports her physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health.
Megan Sin is currently finding ground; experiencing attentively and applying my lessons from the Earth.
Vanessa Koh is a doctoral student at Yale University's Department of Anthropology and School of the Environment. She is interested in the political ecology of what constitutes the "ground" as we know it and is keen to explore the ways in which urban farmers know and think about soil.
Marcus Yee is a student of Earth Systems Science and History, studying in Hong Kong, as well as an art worker, part of the Singapore-based collaborative project, soft/WALL/studs. His fascination with the entanglements between deep time and ecological histories informs his art practice. His writings have appeared in Arts Equator, ArtAsiaPacific, Global Performance Studies Journal, art-agenda, among other publications. He is also a cultivator of fungi, and is currently passionate about fluvial and coastal geomorphology.
Soil Companions and Mentors
We are proud to have a network of people as our mentors and guides, who have been supporting the project from idea to seed with dedication.
The Soil Companions work alongside the soil, they tend to it and know its ins and outs. They are the closest human connection to that particular patch of soil they work on, and by working with them, we gain deeper insight into the patch of land they work with.
The Soil Mentors are subject area leaders. We prefer not to use the term “experts”, because it raises certain kinds of knowledge over others, and makes knowledge into an exclusive, specialised product. Instead, we use the term Mentors, or Leads. Mentoring and leading are roles that we can step in and out of. The more we know about one another’s area of work, the more we learn to depend on one another, and work collaboratively and effectively together.
This way, no one is indispensable, but everyone is invaluable. We are free to do things we personally enjoy, and take the rest we need, when we need it.
Some of our Soil Companions double up as Mentors or Leads when we run instructional activities or workshops. This allows knowledge within our network to circulate and constantly renew, which makes for a more fruit-full world.
Soil Companions
A dragonfly expert involved in various environmental impact assessment projects in Singapore, Mr Tang was the chief farmer and workshop teacher on a plot of land in Ground-Up Initiative’s Kampung Kampus. He has conducted natural farming courses on the land, and now cares for a plot at the Methodist Girls' School, where he has been carrying out intensive soil amendment and rehabilitation. He also works with a team of volunteers at the Jurong Central Park. Some of these places will be involved as demonstration sites for this project.
Living a self-sustainable way in a Japanese zen monastery for 3 years, organically farming up to 4 types of rice and more than 20 types of vegetables - Ee Peng comes back to Singapore in 2015 and continues to farm in urban spaces. She has been actively transforming an industrial space in Seletar Aerospace into farming areas with regenerative farming practices.
Marcus Koe, urban farmer since graduating college in 2017. Urban farming can encompass many things, and Marcus passionately pursues expertise in designing ecological food gardens, urban composting systems, small-scale production farming, permaculture inspired regenerative solutions, and community supported agriculture. He has experienced farming in small organic farms in Japan, and working with various urban farming companies in Singapore. Currently, Marcus is managing a community garden in Kembangan, which functions as his testbed and a showcase of his practices. He also freelances as a home garden designer/manager, and consults on other small-scale farming projects. Marcus wishes to promote the importance of small-scale, soil-based farming and a more ecological mindset to how society thinks about its food issues. In the long term. he hopes to have a small-scale farm to operate and is searching for potential sites and partnerships for his dream. He also loves to grow heirloom vegetables.
Kiat Lay started farming in 2016 at Ground-Up Initiative, where she first learnt of natural farming. In 2020, she joined a team of volunteers farming at the biodiverse edible garden at Jurong Central Park.
Chun Yeow is a corridor and rooftop farmer who is also a professional in the cultural heritage technology public sector. As a nature lover turned farmer turned environmental advocate, he has been involved in the green community in Singapore for much of the past decade.
His advocacy efforts are mainly in environmental, food and plastic waste reduction/recycling/upcycling activities and campaigns led by groups like the Green Ambassadors, Green Nudge, Plastic-lite Singapore and Journey to Zero Waste Life in Singapore. He has also been supporting discussions, events and workshops for Foodscape Collective related to the complex modern food system, composting and soil rehabilitation. He is currently developing educational curriculum through Ecolititude.
Soil, Ecology and Public Health
Some time ago I learned that a group of medical students in Taiwan attended lectures by a soil scientist. I was wondering why. Isn’t soil science a subject more for students of agriculture?
Last month, I had the chance to talk to a soil scientist in Singapore. He cautioned me to touch soil only when my gloves are on in order to protect myself from pathogens, in case the soil is not healthy. Indeed, most soils in Singapore are unhealthy, and unhealthy soil is the breeding ground for a variety of pathogens. I have been farming in 8 different locations in Singapore. I often see rubbish in soil such as plastics, cigarette butts and construction debris. I have even seen filthy and foul-smelling soils.
Soil is an essential part of ecology. Public health comes from healthy ecology and healthy soil. Most of our foods come from soil too. The links are obvious to me now. Knowledge of soil and ecology is essential to medical students, especially those specializing in public health.
Mr HB Tang
Mentors to the Soil Project
Debbie Han
Debbie is a permaculture consultant and designer. Debbie is Co-create Nature’s primary educator and consultant, while designing regenerative edible gardens, nature playground and therapy garden based on permaculture principles, and teaches those who are keen in working with nature to grow their own food, play in nature and heal with nature. Apart from growing good food at home for her family, she spends her time connecting with Mother Nature to evolve with humility, gratitude, reverence, and investing in one’s knowledge and understanding, along with action and responsibility.
Derrick Lim
Derrick is a biodynamic practitioner and currently supports the maintenance of the land at Green Circle Eco-Farm.
The ones who jazz it all up…
Finally, we have the wonderful opportunity to work with a varied group of people in creative fields of work: spanning design, illustration, social content creation, art and pedagogy, embodied experiences… with many more to come 🙂
Wei Yang is a concept artist and illustrator based in Singapore. He graduated from the Singapore University of Technology and Design in 2017 and subsequently from FZD School of Design in 2020. His journey in art and design started from a couple of design courses in university, which eventually led him to pursue concept art. Wei Yang’s interest in both real-life and imaginary environments drive him to create environment concept art and illustrations. Outside of work, he enjoys taking pictures and travelling.
Pollinators of our banana circle – Our Guides and Advisors elsewhere
Walter Siegfried Hahn
Walter was born on a farm in Bavaria and has been involved with biodynamic, organic and permaculture farms and gardens, lecturing, consulting and training, since 1975. In addition, since 1997, he has set up, directed and advised numerous sensory experience fields in Europe, Asia and North America. Since, 2010, besides his international engagements in consulting on enterprise development, farming and sensory experience fields, he has directed an NGO in Palawan, Philippines, which is engaged in agriculture, nutrition, health and education.