The presence of soil in contemporary art can be thought of as continuous with the Earth Art movement of the 1960s and 1970s. Iconic works of this era include Andy Goldsworthy’s stone cairns and cracked clay walls; Michael Heizer’s geologic fissure in the Nevada desert; Walter De Maria’s Earth Room sculptures, in which the artist scattered soil across gallery floors; and Robert Smithson’s mud and basalt jetty in Utah’s Great Salt Lake. What differentiates contemporary uses of soil from these material predecessors, however, is the more recent association of soil with climate change, colonization, and resource scarcity, emphasized by environmental catastrophe. 

The architectural residue of abandoned Pizza Huts, a tote bag full of receipts for Gatorade, Cheetos, NASCAR memorabilia, the giant rotating bucket outside of KFC— these are uncanny images which to some extent are synonymous with American iconography. Though the imagery of the American Dream has shifted into absurdity, there remains an underlying urge to participate in the fantasies of American commercial culture and to produce images of American identity. In the conversation that follows, artist/curator/arts facilitator Philip Leonard Ocampo discusses the paradoxical ways the ideals associated with the American Dream have impacted his family and artistic practice in a Canadian diasporic context. Born to Filipino parents, the Toronto-based Ocampo recently completed his studies at Ontario College of Art and Design and alongside his own studio work, he has since engaged in a number of curatorial projects including The Bald Eagle’s Claw, at Xpace Cultural Centre in the summer of 2019. At...