In 1912, my paternal grandmother emigrated from a small village outside of Naples, Italy, to the Midwood section of Brooklyn, New York. This lacy textile that I have buried and exhumed for the Soil Dialogues project was handed down to me as part of what I reverently consider her legacy. It was she, after all, who taught me how to crochet and whose finely wrought stainless steel crochet hooks I also inherited and hold dear.

          This history inspired my enduring interest in textiles. Their reticulated structures and allegorical properties prompted further explorations into life’s essential compositions and substantive environments. All that surrounds us — the actual air, waters, and soil — is alive, just as every being who dwells upon and within these elements lives. And just as the air and water are now perilously contaminated, the earth’s soil too, is in decay. As all who rely upon the integrity of these habitats suffer their degradation, invisible, teeming communities of microorganisms are also threatened.

          There are more than a million species of nematodes living throughout the world’s microbial habitats, in marshlands, deserts, oceans, and soils. Often described as transparent, threadlike worms — nema means thread in Greek — nematodes propose a distinct marriage of metaphorical and empirical interconnectivity. (1) As they consume and metabolize bacteria, fungi, and other microfauna, including other nematodes, they stitch the soil’s nutrients and minerals together, performing their sinuous choreography for the soil food web.

          Studies regarding extinction have usually focused on aboveground species, but the crisis underground is now recognizably urgent. Pollution, urbanization, over-tillage and climate change lead to erosion and elevated levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide. For nematodes and other microbes, these conditions create imbalances between their beneficial and harmful species, intensifying the threat of extinction for all. Consequently, extended research on nematode variations, vulnerabilities and relationships to soil health is now critical. ​​