Dein Erdanteil//Your Share of the Earth//Din teg av jorden

How much land do we actually have at our disposal? In the autumn of 2011, I began investigating our individual "fair share" of the planet’s surface. By dividing the total land area of Earth by the global population at the time (seven billion), the result was 21,275 m² per person.

This figure is abstract and difficult to visualise. Is it a vast estate or a cramped plot? More importantly, only a fraction of this—roughly 1,995 m² (less than a tenth)—is actually arable land capable of sustaining us. Dein Erdanteil is a multidisciplinary project that seeks to make these invisible boundaries tangible through sculpture, data, and social practice.

Visualising a Fair Share of the Earth

In January 2012, I presented the first stage of the project: a 1:200 scale model of an island. This model represented exactly 21,275 m², composed of various biomes proportional to the Earth's surface. By condensing the world’s geography into a single, graspable object, the work highlights the finitude of our resources.

To further ground the statistics in the physical body, I served tea, coffee, beer, and wine in amounts corresponding to a seven-billionth of one week’s global production. This allowed participants to literally consume their "fair share" of the world's output, bridging the gap between global macro-economics and individual experience.

Berlin: The Garden as Political Research

Upon moving to Berlin, the project evolved into a living experiment. I shifted focus to the 1,995 m² of arable land—the thin layer of topsoil that stands between humanity and starvation. At Tempelhof, the former airport turned public park, I established a garden to physically occupy and cultivate a portion of this "allotted" land.

This was not merely gardening, but an act of artistic research. By tilling the soil, I explored the tension between the theoretical equality of "share" and the geopolitical reality of land ownership. The project questions the historical and legal constructs that allow land to be treated as a commodity rather than a shared biological necessity.

A Theory of Land and Time

The project is rooted in the idea that our relationship with land is deeply distorted by our perception of time and ownership. While legal systems treat land as static property, Dein Erdanteil views it as a dynamic, living system. Whether through the meticulous construction of ceramic models or the seasonal cycle of a garden, the work serves as a reminder that we do not just inhabit the land—we are fundamentally sustained by its limited surface.