O-Horizon

About the exhibit:

The uppermost strata of soil is called the O Horizon, a layer that is defined by both vitality and decay. Decomposing organic matter and a vibrancy of insect, microbial, algal, and plant life are simultaneously and continuously occurring within its bounds. The phrase also feels like it could be the beginning of an epic poem.

The exhibit O-Horizon is an unedited glimpse into the process of writing a book. Austen Camille is currently working on their first manuscript, a series of poems and essays about soil health, regenerative practices and rural culture. The writing is primarily inspired by a series of interviews that Camille has been conducting with land stewards located around the upper Eastern Shore.

Here, you can see the tangle of notes, drawings, objects, and experiments that collectively add up to a book. It is a complicated and interconnected process, overwhelmingly full of different life forms: fertile ground for stories to emerge from.

Throughout the life of the exhibition, viewers will be invited to interact and contribute their stories about soil and the definition of rural.

About the artist:

Austen Camille (Canadian-American) is a multidisciplinary artist, writer, builder and gardener.

Camille primarily makes site-responsive public work that aims to both build relationships with the local environment, as well as call attention to the relationships that already exist within that environment.

Camille’s work has been commissioned and exhibited in a diverse range of landscapes, from the dramatic northern Wyoming rivers to the high desert of eastern Oregon, from the rolling farmland in southern Wisconsin to the tidal estuary marshes along the Hudson River. Camille’s past projects include orchestrating an interdisciplinary conversation series across Temple University, creating and hosting a podcast called ‘Our Shared Field’ in order to bring artists into conversation with people from outside of the arts, and a collaboration between artists and oceanographers to undertake restoration work of cold water corals in the Gulf of Mexico.

Camille received their MFA in Painting from the Tyler School of Art and Architecture (Temple University) in 2020.