The making of compost is a process of biological decomposition of organic materials and their alteration into a rich, soil-like mixture. My interest in this process lies in its relationship to other forms of metabolic and transformative activity. Composting can be seen as a very slow form of fire or a very fast form of the consolidation of coal. This generation of heat and transformation of materiality is also common to the functioning of animal and plant organisms through the degenerative process of catabolism and the regenerative process of anabolism, the two interdependent phases of metabolism. The cycles of carbon exchange, respiration and photosynthesis may also be included in this construct. Another analogy to compost is to creativity as in art making, where ideas and emotions become form and material with inspiration as the energetic protagonist. Compost and the making of compost can be seen as analogous to life itself; at once empirical and poetic, existential and metaphorical.

In April of 1996 I was given the opportunity to interact over the period of a week with students and staff of the Manchester Craftsman Guild of Pittsburgh, PA and The Alter Project at Slippery Rock University in Slippery Rock, PA. We worked together in a collaborative effort to explore the process of composting in the context of art making. Our task was to investigate the conceptual, poetic, practical, social, sculptural and kinetic possibilities of compost making. The workshop’s procedure was to begin with exploratory discussions about composting, we then decided to focus on designing apparatus for the production of compost and broke off into individual conceptual, design and model investigations. After a group analysis and critique of the proposals we hybridized designs and formed collaborative teams to build working prototypes of compost devices. These were built out of simple, available materials with an eye to both the aesthetic and kinetic need for composting materials to be housed and rotated as well as to the potential of such a device for revealing insight or relationships with the compost process and other human activity. The completed prototypes were sited on the land of the Alter Project near a larger farm-scale composting area. The devices were then filled by participants of the workshop with materials brought from Manchester’s kitchen and materials from the site.

It was significant that the participants in the workshop were inner-city high school students and college students from the rural domain of Slippery Rock converging at The Alter Project, which is an experimental farm for the study of ecological and sustainable living systems. This mixture of diverse partners, fermentation of thought and concentrated effort displayed in this workshop hopefully suggested to the participants new relationships between the systems of creativity, metabolism and social interaction.

Materials used in the construction of the compost mixing devices:

Plywood

Lumber

Plastic window screen

Wire fencing

Commercial plastic garbage can

Linseed oil

John Roloff, 1996