Seeds++: a design exploration of regenerative soil practices for interspecies care.

In recent decades, market-driven logic has increasingly shaped self-care, leading to its simplification and commodification (Fragnito & Tola, 2021, p.19). Personal well-being has been reduced to individualistic practices, the purchase of exclusive lifestyle products (The Care Collective, 2020, p.26), and technological devices for tracking biological parameters. This narrow perspective reinforces ideals of self-sufficiency, autonomy, and independence, promoting an anthropocentric view that ignores our fundamental dependence on other living and non-living entities, organic matter, and biochemical processes that connect us to planetary systems. In contrast, the intersection of ecology, feminism, and post-anthropocentrism (Adams & Gruen, 2022; Braidotti, 2017; Haraway, 2018; Mies & Shiva, 1993; Puig de la Bellacasa, 2017) points to the need to rethink capitalist models, hierarchical structures, and dualistic ontologies that have reinforced environmental and social injustices. Design, too, must evolve, embracing cooperative and symbiotic approaches, fostering interspecies care practices that support the well-being of human and non-human life forms, as well as technological assemblages. In this light, care transforms into a radical act, one that can carry political significance. This contribution presents key design outcomes from an ongoing research project that brings together Research through Design (Redström, 2017) with autobiographical and autoethnographic approaches informed by Soma Design (Höök, 2018). The research investigates mutual care relationships between humans and the multispecies communities within soil, leading to the creation of artefacts that acknowledge the subject’s embeddedness within a more-than-human milieu. Soil’s essence lies in relationality – it is a complex, living system where organisms interact through regenerative cycles and biochemical exchanges. As one of the planet’s most vital biotypes, soil is essential for food and material production, yet it remains a neglected, non-renewable resource. Its fragile balance is increasingly threatened by intensive agriculture, extractivist practices, and climate change, which undermine its regenerative capacity. As part of this discussion, participants will engage with prototypes from the ongoing Seeds++ series, identifying key strengths, challenges, and future directions for the research. These prototypes aim to foster a collective and systemic approach to interspecies responsibility, bonding somatic awareness with soil care through collective practices.