THE INCOME OF THIS ITEM WILL FULLY GO TO THE ARTIST. IN EXCHANGE WE WILL RECEIVE A CONTRIBUTION. :––)

S/OIL SOAP is part of a dialogue which started in 2019 and still continues.
In the summer of 2019 Kim Lang was able to go on a research trip connected to her studies at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam. During this physical research she moved around Europe by train and visited several communities to learn more about their connection, their co-living with the landscape they are embedded in.

The echo of this research trip turned into a publication which introduces these communities, the gardens, the forests, their routines and rituals, the seeds and their stories.

After visiting all these places Kim felt strongly encouraged to share these practices of care for the ‘more than human world’ further. All places she visited received a letter in which she expressed her observation about their practice and what she deeply appreciated. She asked them to share a few seeds of their ‘more than gardens’ and believes that within these seeds a big potential and knowledge is kept. Not only will it grow food for people to be fed, it will gather humans and invite them to put their hands into the soil, together and ‘get in touch’ with the earth. These seeds know of the people that have grown them before, they know of their voices, their songs, these seeds know about their continuous ‘showing up’ in the ‘more than gardens’, so believes Kim.

As an ode to the care of these communities for the land they live with, she made a symbolic gesture, a big piece of soap mixed with soil. At her graduation exhibition the seeds, their stories and the Echo-publication were presented, next to a long flat piece of brown soap, reminiscent of a piece of earth. Visitors of the exhibition were invited to wash their hands with pieces of the S/OIL SOAP which dripped into another container. This water was used outside in the school garden to water the plants; to close a cycle.

The big S/OIL SOAP is now cut into many oval, palm-sized bars of soap. With these she wants to share her gratitude for the practices of care the communities she visited maintain. The remaining pieces of soap are being sold, with all earnings flowing into the continuation of the dialogue with the communities, the growing of the seeds, the thriving together.

The oval S/OIL SOAP is held by a cotton-rope, able to be laid around your neck or shoulder, while entering the river, the lake, the shower or bathtub. A ‘symbol of care’ for the landscapes that hold and nourish our bodies. The S/OIL SOAP invites you into a playful research with your own rituals of care.

Kim is deeply fascinated by the practices around a shared landscape, the ‘co-thriving’. The seeds are sleeping at her home in Amsterdam until spring 2021 invites her and the seeds to travel to North Italy and follow the promise she gave to the communities ― to give the seeds back to the soil, where they belong and let them continue their natural cycle.

Rowen White, a seed-keeper, Mohawk woman from the community of Akwesasne said: “I always think that I’m growing corn, but I think that the corn is growing me.”
With this in mind Kim wishes to embed these seeds, their stories and knowledge into a caring landscape, and grow with them, the land and its inhabitants.

ARTIST
Kim Lang graduated in 2020 from Gerrit Rietveld Academie, BA TxT (text, theory, textile) in Amsterdam.

INGREDIENTS
Sunflower oil, water, coconut oil, soil, olive oil, lye, cocoa butter, lavender oil, pine oil, rosemary oil (all organic - except for the lye).

a play on S/OIL

S/OIL being…

…an oval space
…water slowly dripping
…earthy
…brown
…home
…your body
…all gestures of care you perform
…in flow
…goosebumps
…earth-bound
…forever composting
…waters flowing back
…signs of care
…a way to nourish back
…a seed yourself
…almost round - oval
…like S/OIL