What is held in the ground is never singular. The soil holds what has been built and what has been undone. It carries gestures of care sedimented within violent histories. To approach the ground, here, is to approach a field of entanglement—a temporal convergence of soil, labour, and memory. Shaped by particular landscapes and micro-topographies, ingredients, gestures, and tastes become a living archive carried within and through practice. 

flour, water, soil, initiated by maria khatchadourian, takes shape through new and adapted site-specific works by Areej Ashhab, the duo Common Ground (Anna Celda and Saja Amro), Ola Hassanain, maria khatchadourian, Ai Ozaki and belit sağ. Together, the works in the exhibition attend to soil, seed, water, fermentation, and ruin as sites where care and violence are entangled—holding stories of repair, dispossession, and continuity.

The exhibition reflects on food, land, and agricultural practice as the infrastructures through which geographies of displacement, colonial rupture, and kinship are carried and contested—fragile geographies that resist erasure through dialect, embodied knowledge, and ancestral recipes.

To gather is to remain with others, to share what is available, to sustain forms of relation under pressure. With an extended community programme, the exhibition unfolds through acts of gathering: conversations, reading sessions, workshops, shared meals, foraging, and collective actions. Emerging as an exhibition continually in flux, flour, water, soil will expand through gestures that activate the space as a lived, living, and sustaining environment.

Press release (pdf)
Press kit with install photography (zip)

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Colophon

Initiated by maria khatchadourian

At W139, we work collectively and intersectionally on exhibitions—guided and led by the initiating artists that we invite. This exhibition has been developed by the artistic team, with Margarita Osipian leading the process, together with Tomas Adolfs, André Avelãs, Yasaman Bathaee, Dana Claasen, Levi van Gelder, Dil Ghale, Lies Kelder, Geer van der Klugt, Monica Liu, Macarena Magaña, Tiago Sá da Costa, Annette Wolfsberger, and our amazing team of volunteers.

Visual identity: Farah Fayyad

Install photography: Sander van Wettum

This exhibition is generously supported by Amsterdam Fund for the Arts and Mondriaan Fund.

The production of the work of Areej Ashhab was supported by Amarte Fund and Niemeijer Fund, with special thanks to Stichting La Jetée, Mohammad Bakri (cinematographer video), Raquel Rodríguez Puebla – Architectural Skin, and Aimée Theriot-Ramos (sound artist).

The production of the work of maria khatchadourian was supported by rammed earth specialist Charles Thuijls.

The residency with Casa Amasijo is part of the Exchanges programme by the Prince Claus Fund, with the support of the Amsterdam City Council.

Partners: Four Siblings, IMC Weekendschool

A special thank you to Salim Bouna, Tierrafino, Framer Framed, Openbare Bibliotheek Amsterdam, Gerrit Rietveld Academie, and everyone who donated flour bags to Common Ground.