Cthulucene and the Humble Compost Heap #wip
“The unfinished Chthulucene must collect up the trash of the Anthropocene, the exterminism of the Capitalocene, and chipping and shredding and layering like a mad gardener, make a much hotter compost pile for still possible pasts, presents, and futures.”
- Donna Harraway
Chthonic derives from ancient Greek khthonios, “of the earth,” and from khthōn, “earth.” Greek mythology depicts the chthonic as the underworld, beneath the Earth; but the chthonic ones are much older (and younger) than those Greeks. Sumeria is a riverine civilisational scene of emergence of great chthonic tales, including possibly the great circular snake eating its own tail, the polysemous Ouroboros (figure of the continuity of life, an Egyptian figure as early as 1600 BCE; Sumerian SF worlding dates to 3500 BCE or before).
https://www.horniman.ac.uk/story/a-beginners-guide-to-compost/
Pee Bales - wee on your compost heap to fertilise and save toilet flushing https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/earthnews/6554958/Urinate-on-the-compost-heap-to-save-the-planet-says-the-National-Trust.html
https://www.plasticwastehub.org.uk/project/the-big-compost-experiment The Big Compost Experiment
Symbols of the compost heap
Legacies and storytelling
Imaginative futures
Qualities of the CH itself
Idea of using compost heaps as an installation or sculptural entity
Barbara Schmitz-Becker https://www.schmitzbecker.de/ and instagram https://www.instagram.com/barbaraschmitzbecker/
Painted branches or covered with charcoal
Perhaps making charcoal out of composted wood and then making the charcoal the entity
Composting Feminism and Humanities