With increasing questions about the sources, quality and safety of our food, the relationship of soil to food production and consumption is an especially critical issue in communities throughout the world. In the spirit of exploring and exposing these relationships, Julia Mandle debuted Dirty Cookies in December 2008, asking friends and guests to “dig deeper” and bring a bag of local soil to a participatory art event.

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The project intended to raise the question: do (and should) we trust our local dirt?

Staged as a faux-dinner party, Dirty Cookies was an opportunity for guests to expose the plight of those whose health is indirectly sabotaged by society’s water and soil mismanagement. Like many of Mandle’s projects, the inspiration for Dirty Cookies was a news article and photograph—a story of a teenage mother in Haiti, unable to produce milk due to undernourishment. Desperate for food, the young woman made “cookies” out of clay, salt, and lard to fill her stomach, as many poverty-stricken people resort to doing. Theirs was the “cookie” recipe Mandle appropriated for this project.

Guests arriving with bags of their local soil tested it for dangerous metals, learned how to make “cookies,” skill-shared soil treatment and composting tactics, and created geographical soil maps of the participating neighborhoods; while deliberating on issues of soil quality and ways of effecting positive change in the environment. Guest speakers included environmental and sustainability experts, a composting specialist, and a landscape architect, who shed light on environmental and political implications of our soil quality. As energy costs rise, while energy potentials are limited, 45% of the world’s population will have to grow food locally, including those living in the possibly contaminated areas described on the maps. Guests packaged their “cookies,” with a list of ingredients, to distribute to local politicians and authorities in order to advocate for cleaner soil in their communities.

Dirty Cookies delved into local issues as well as our role in the world at large, creating moments to pause, reflect and consider possible action. Dirty Cookies was also an experiment in cultural production for a post-consumerist age—a gathering of friends, an off-line social networking site, and an encouraging venue, urging us to look at the roots of our communities, our families, and our futures.

Pratt Manhattan Gallery, New York, NY, December 2014 - February 2015

Old American Can Factory, Brooklyn, NY, October 2014

Old American Can Factory, Brooklyn, NY, December 2008

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Dirty Cookies was produced during slowLab's residency at Pratt Institute of the Arts, culminating with an exhibition at Pratt Manhattan Gallery curated by slowLab. Dirty Cookies was additionally made possible through generous support from Olivia Douglas & David DiDomenico, Marie Nugent-Head, and Goldman Sachs. The project was created through the invaluable input and support from Jonathan Matthew Russell-Anelli, Murray McBride from The Department of Crop and Soil Sciences at Cornell University and their program Healthy Soils/Healthy Communities. Support for citywide soil collecting and testing came through the involvement of the AP Environmental Science Students and teachers Julie Mankiewicz and Edward Wren at The Bronx High School of Science. The project would not have been realized without the support from Nathan Elbogen and The Old American Can Factory, Sarah Louise Lilley, and Tricia Martin. The additional ‘dirt’ meditation program was made possible through the involvement of Puntsokla and the access provided by Bill Dillworth and The Earth Room, Dia Center for the Arts.