On 10 September 2026, Nadia Fellini and Mathieu Goradesky of Controvento, Italian partner of the Horizon Europe project LOESS, presented Stories from the Subsoil at the Soils for Europe Conference 2026, held at the University of Coimbra, Portugal. The conference brought together researchers, educators, policymakers and practitioners involved in the European Mission Soil agenda.

Developed in collaboration with the Italian Community of Practice of LOESS, Stories from the Subsoil is a series of audiovisual narrative portraits that explores storytelling as a participatory and pedagogical approach to soil literacy.

The work starts from the premise that soil literacy requires more than the dissemination of scientific information. It requires connecting scientific knowledge with professional practices, lived experiences, values and collective choices, helping people understand soil as a complex socio-ecological system connected to health, food, biodiversity, landscape and environmental risk.

Audiovisual storytelling is therefore conceived not simply as a communication tool, but as a knowledge practice. By bringing together different perspectives, it promotes reflexivity and dialogue among participants while making complex and contested soil issues accessible to wider audiences without simplifying their complexity.

The pedagogical framework of the series connects Knowing, Doing and Being: understanding soil, engaging in practices of care and stewardship, and developing the values and responsibilities needed to act upon it. Soil literacy is consequently understood as a process linking knowledge, agency and ethical positioning.

The experience suggests that strengthening soil literacy also means building epistemic communities capable of recognising the complexity and intelligence of soil and translating knowledge into shared forms of care and action. Rather than seeking a single narrative, Stories from the Subsoil values the diversity of relationships that people and communities have with soil as a resource for critical thinking, dialogue and collective action.

The methodological experience developed through LOESS is now informing a new participatory research process on environment and health, in which citizens’ video stories contribute to bringing lived experience into dialogue with academic research.

Stories from the Subsoil thus presents audiovisual storytelling as a pedagogical and participatory practice connecting research, experience and civic agency, with potential for adaptation to different European contexts and for contributing to long-term soil stewardship.