Rethinking carbon: a visual journey with Aviva Reed
Picture this: a dimly lit conference room with a single beam of light illuminating a pedestal of earth – a stark contrast to the buzz of the Brisbane Convention & Exhibition Centre.
Aviva Reed facilitating the 'Carbon literacy and the living world of soil' session at evokeAG. 2025.
For the 200 or so delegates who packed the room, it was clear this was no ordinary evokeAG. breakout session. What unfolded was an artistic, immersive exploration of the need to change our relationship with carbon.
Ambience and intimacy aren’t usually associated with a conference venue, but that’s exactly the mood visual ecologist Aviva Reed created at her evokeAG. 2025 breakout session, Carbon Literacy and the Living World of Soil.
“We are carbon, thinking about carbon”.
With those opening words, Aviva invited the audience into a moment of reflection – to consider our deep connection with carbon not just scientifically, but personally. She encouraged a shift from viewing carbon solely as a problem to be managed, to recognising it as a vital part of the living world – and of us.
Carbon through art
Aviva, an ecological artist, environmental author, and science educator, uses storytelling and art to unravel scientific complexities and make them both accessible and beautiful.
Through storytelling, theatre, and a single spotlight illuminating a pedestal of earth, Aviva crafted a sensory and emotional experience that challenged conventional narratives.
Carbon as art
Her session was as much performance as it was presentation. In place of data and diagrams, carbon was described in poetic words that sought to blend science with personal reflection, and art with ecological insight.
The audience was asked to consider carbon as “a gothic tale” of creation, connection, displacement, and estrangement. “Not a villain or a hero, but a constant presence in the cycles of life and death.”
Her artwork Beetle Babies exemplified this blend of science and art, depicting dung beetle larvae in soil as a symbol of creation.
“Sitting in the sublime with soil – the medium where decay blurs the edges of life, death, and renewal. Soil reminds us of the ephemeral, the edges of life becoming thicker and livelier with each death.
“It’s carbon being recycled into its next incarnation. Soil becomes what it is through the ingestion of foods by humans, and it will ultimately eat us when we breathe our last breath.”
While her reflections may have felt unconventional, they underscored a deeper truth: carbon isn’t only a metric or market instrument – it’s part of what makes life possible.
Soil carbon, exiled
The global carbon narrative is pragmatic – focused on emissions, sequestration, and storage. Aviva, in contrast, painted a lyrical portrait of displacement and exile:
“In the age of exponential human disturbance and emission, carbon has been forced from its complexities and ushered skyward in huge quantities from coals and gasses, the felling of forests, the erasure of swamps, and the disturbance of soil,” she said.
“Carbon released from ancient bonds and into the air finds its way into an acidified ocean, or remains trapped in the sky; imprisoned through a global process of broken chemical bonds.
“Carbon forced into diaspora; scattered from its homelands and exiled.”
Her artwork, Soil, portrayed soil as luscious, alive, and dynamic.
Aviva described a reality where, in her view, soil has been so significantly disrupted that it struggles to retain the moisture, nutrients, and carbon needed to sustain life.
“Carbon’s ability to live and thrive in soil has been destroyed and broken through the past few 100 years due to many industrial processes,” she said. “Removal of vegetation, soil disturbances, compactions and tillages, pesticides, changes in fire, herbicides, fungicides, fertilisers.
“Soil carbon, exiled and unable to return to soil due to the lack of moisture and food, is a brutal reminder of endings, of starvation, of famines.”
Aviva posed the challenge: “How can we bring soil back to life and enliven its chemical properties so it may once again hold water, nutrients and carbon? How can we heal the carbon chemistry of the earth?”
Throwing the challenge to the audience, Aviva asked delegates to discuss how they nurture carbon in their business.
The answers came back.
“Listening to what the ecosystem needs.”
“Regenerative farming.”
“Tree planting.”
“Fostering biodiversity – in the soil and above it.”
Not ‘new science,’ but a remembering of old approaches. Of a time when, even if the science of carbon was not understood, the practice of nurturing it was.
As delegates stepped back into the busy halls of evokeAG., heading to our next session or networking opportunity, I stopped to ponder:
What if we looked beyond carbon as a metric, and instead saw it as a force to understand, nurture, and work alongside?
Would it stop soil degradation?
Restore carbon to the ground, and not the sky?
Reframe carbon as a giver of life, not a destroyer?
Maybe not. But as this session showed, rethinking our relationship with carbon could open up new ways to restore balance – and that’s exactly the kind of thinking evokeAG. is designed to inspire.
Want to stay across the latest in the agrifood ecosystem? Subscribe to our monthly evokeAG. and growAG. newsletter for insights, stories and opportunities.
Keen to be first in the know about evokeAG.? Sign up for evokeAG. updates and never miss an announcement.