#4 Soils are not

Soils Archives: Digging for Thick Commons

In southern Luxembourg, soils constitute an archive for the region’s wealth, layering temporal stratas that connect the present with historical extractive industries such as coal production and steel manufacturing. Underneath the surface, the grounds blur the limits between human actions and the composition of the earth. From the movements of polluted dirt to the economic repurpose of waste, Soils Archives investigates our relationship with what lies underground, imagining alternative narratives that transcend a purely economical valorization towards what could be defined as Thick Commons.

As an in-situ research endeavor, the project involves encounters with specialists in excavation—waste managers, construction companies, geologists—as well as soil revitalization—ecologists, researchers, politicians—to explore different understandings of our relationship with digging. When grounds are not only considered a material resource, they become a cosmopolitical tool to question the meaning of inhabiting the territories around us as well as the non-human dynamics that shape them.

Located around the city of Esch-sur-Alzette, several former waste sites from the steel industry slowly become potentials for urban growth due to their proximity with municipal areas, displaying samples of several stages of development. With an uncertain future, the Crassier Terres Rouges constitutes a border zone between Luxembourg and France that confronts two visions for a common territory, aspiring for urban developments and renaturation projects. Abandoned in the citizen imaginaries for its highly polluted grounds, its large amount of slag—waste from the steel ovens—is sold and reused for road stability as an alternative to the poor qualities of the “natural” geology of the region. As soils are dug, the history of southern Luxembourg is unearthed, deploying an aesthetic poetry composed of dirt nuances and indigenous species of plants that only grow in polluted areas.

By multiplying voices and representations, Soils Archives fosters the production of a multi-perspective narrative on the region’s grounds and waste. The project collects interviews, archives, drill cores and photographs to envision a new cartography that understands soils in depth, against the planar vision of urban development and territorial planning. Following a scouting trip in March and a residency in September 2025, the creation of visual and textual content paved the premises for the emergence of a political demand that aims for a change regarding the way soils are considered politically.

A Political Demand: Soils are not a commodity!

Soils Archives involves encounters with actors and researchers in Esch-sur-Alzette from several institutions: Department of Spatial Planning; Department of Ecology; Department of Industrial and Historical Heritage; Administration of the Environment; Geological Service of Luxembourg; Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology (LIST); Master in Architecture at the University of Luxembourg; as well as the pluridisciplinary consulting and engineering company Zeyen Baumann.

The demand therefore stems from exchanges with practitioners that actively participate in the knowledge around soils that is produced in the city of Esch-sur-Alzette. Among the many interviews, it was stated as an example—or a counterexample—that polluted soils are rarely handled in Luxembourg, but instead exported to appropriate facilities in neighboring countries such as France and Germany. This rather unecological international economic system serves here to question ourselves about how to consider soils differently? Soils are not a commodity or a simple extractive resource, they constitute ecologies of collaboration between humans and non-humans that will sustain livability in the future, a literal common ground or Thick Commons to care for.

During another conversation with Anna Espinoza from LIST with César Reyes Nájera in October 2025, it was discussed that “It would be good for politicians to start speaking about topics that have not been addressed before. It is clear that with pollution there will always be a certain level of fear, but if inhabitants see that there are initiatives currently working on its remediation, the notion of care can start being introduced. There is a beautiful potential to start working towards actions of soil literacy. The perception could be different, it is not more about polluted soils but about soils that need some level of healing. Soils should be considered a common good.” Additionally, philosopher Matthieu Duperrex argues that “In the face of extractivism’s total exploitation of the earth and the accelerated “fossilization” of our thermal civilization, it is essential to reclaim from capital a long-term perspective, a heritage to be preserved, and mineral commons that contribute to the vital infrastructure of the critical zone we inhabit and have shaped.”

As a summary, this demand is a call for local experimentations based on context, multiplicity and practices rather than a search for a systemic change or reproducible system. Soils are not a commodity means to start collective actions for a common literacy and the consolidation of affects. As collective forms of life with non-human entities, soils should become a cosmopolitical tool to question our relationship with territories through planning, history, waste, toxicity and ecologies.