The Big Sequester, 2017
Old School Art Asylum
Wormfarm Institute
Reedsburg, WI
Verge – Test Plot
Verge (Dtour 2016) returned for Fermentation Fest’s Test Plot on August 26th and 27th, 2017. For Verge, Sara Black, Amber Ginsburg and Lia Rousset worked with local builders of all skill levels to create and place 220 Leopold benches at a farm site between two adjacent ecological communities: where field meets forest. Designed by the late Wisconsin ecologist Aldo Leopold, crafted with material harvested from the surrounding forests and made to support the human body, the benches symbolically hold the “human position” in this ecosystem. Though through the process of charcoalization the bench’s role shifts, becoming a resting point for nonhuman beings. Join us for a weekend of material transformation from bench, to charcoal and then to biochar – a material host for microorganisms that promote soil biodiversity and long-term carbon storage. Through the weekend we will learn how to produce bio-char by Tony Saladino and with artists Black and Ginsburg consider the link between local ecosystems and larger global systems like the carbon cycle.
Biochar Workshop with Tony Saladino followed by a Community Potluck
Biochar is the name of a 2,000 year-old practice that converts agricultural waste into a soil enhancer that can hold carbon, boost food security and increase soil biodiversity, while discouraging deforestation. The process creates a fine-grained, highly porous charcoal that helps soils retain nutrients and water. Tony Saladino presented a live workshop in which participants learned-by-doing in producing batches of biochar.
The Big Sequester and Biochar
On Sunday morning Sara and Amber stoked up eight anaerobic charcoal kilns, transforming the remaining material of the original Verge benches into charcoal and then on to biochar for the enrichment of local growing systems. The community joined them in the morning to tend the roaring kilns while chatting about carbon from the molecular to the atmospheric level. The afternoon was spent working together to turn charcoal into biochar. Whether a follow to Tony’s workshop the day before or as a first introduction to biochar, we all learned together.
