Marte Mei + De Ceuvel

Glaze made from metals extracted by plants from contaminated soil

Seventeen houseboats lie on dry land on the grounds of Broedplaats de Ceuvel in Amsterdam. And for a good reason: the soil here is so polluted that building on this site is not permitted. Therefore, all green initiatives connected to de Ceuvel are based out of one of these boats. However, the heart of this project, by designer Marte Mei van Haaster and land manager Anke Wijnja, is not located on the houseboats, but in the green sea of plants that surrounds them.

These plants absorb heavy metals from the soil as they grow. Anke harvests these plants when they are fully grown by pulling them out of the ground, to extract the toxins from the soil for good. This process is also known as phytoextraction. Until now, however, there has been no destination for the residual product- these plants laden with toxic heavy metals. They cannot be composted or thrown away as this will allow all the toxins to reenter the system- and this is where designer and Land-Ally Marte Mei comes into the picture.

Land-Ally

‘As Land-Ally, I try to facilitate the relationship between humans and nature through design.’ The term Land-Ally refers to a method Marte Mei developed- it describes how to contribute positively to a landscape as a designer, as an ally of the land. This method consists of seven steps and takes shape in collaboration with ecologists or other landscape specialists. Determining where the landscape is out of balance, after getting to know an area, is a vital step in the process. Marte Mei determined that the Ceuvel landscape’s main imbalance lies in the fact that plants growing there cannot be returned to the earth after phytoextraction.

In an earlier project, Marte Mei made a natural glaze for ceramics from wood ashes. When Anke Wijnja saw samples from this project in Martes studio, the idea for a Ceuvel ash glaze was born. ‘With this project, we were trying to find a purpose for the plant matter that already existed, and preferably in the form of an object that could also contribute back to the cycle of phytoextraction.’

Weeds?

Marte Mei converts the Ceuvel’s plants into ash and turns this into glaze. These glazes are then used on a set of tools for the Ceuvel and on mugs which hold the seedlings from which the glaze was made. “We want to show how much power there is in the nettle or the elder tree. People might think about phytoextraction: those will be very special crazy plants that I have to order, but no! You can do this with plants you might even label as weeds.” These glazed pots can also be repurposed as mugs.

A regular part of Marte Meis’ working process is shaping her final product according to the obstacles she encounters. ‘I look for a way to work with nature as a collaborator, rather than using it as a commodity. As a result, there is always a moment in my working process where things don’t turn out at all the way I want. And that always makes me laugh because I realise: this is because I am collaborating with an entity that doesn’t show up in the way I want it to as a human being.’ The Ceuvel’s plants, for example, did not show up in the quantities Marte Meis had initially hoped for. And harvesting a lot of extra plants for the ashes would go beyond the purpose of supporting the landscape with the created object. As a result, less glaze was available, so the plant pots had to be redesigned to fit this restriction. Silt from the area around the Ceuvel was also used as glaze in addition to ash.

Additionally, some plants had absorbed so many toxins that, after testing, some glazes were determined to not be entirely food safe. Marte turned this problem into the second part of the final product, which is a series of tools that will be used for workshops on the Ceuvel, which will explore phytoextraction and the role of humans in an ecosystem. A shovel that participants use to harvest new plants is made with a potentially toxic glaze, but the mug they drink from is safe.

A positive contribution

The workshop serves as a way to pass on the knowledge gained about phytoextraction and to contribute to continue its cycle. ‘Ceramics have a negative connotation because of the energy required for firing, so how can the works we make contribute positively to the environment?’ Critical self-questioning on sustainability is crucial for Marte Mei as a designer. “We can no longer continue to impose our will on the landscape from a human-centric view. That’s what got us into this mess at the first place.” According to Marte Mei, it is time for us as humans to relate to landscapes in a positive, constructive way. “We need to start seeing ourselves as a positive influence on nature, otherwise we simply can’t move forward,” she says. In this, she hopes to contribute with her Land-Ally method.

Text: Anke Vromen
Photography: Fan Liao