Inside Earthbox: a cavern of connection

Somewhere below the Earth’s surface, a mere 6m from the strutted ceiling of the chamber, I inhale a healthy humus scent of clean, moist soil. Suddenly there is absolute darkness — a dank, subterranean emptiness. It lasts just a few moments, but it’s an experience of total disorientation. And yet there is something else, too — something more difficult to describe. A connection, perhaps. A weird surge of emotions, a pensiveness emanating from the unfamiliar setting.

Set at the intersection of engineering and magic, geology and architecture, Earthbox is a hollowed-out underground space with nothing to guide your eyes besides an arrangement of lights that illuminate the walls — and then leave you in darkness. It’s a first-of-its-kind immersive experience in Somerset West, an interactive art installation, perhaps.

Whatever it is, it’s completely different from any underground experience I’ve had. There’ve been a few. Apart from the metro train stations and underground parking lots, I’ve slept in underground backpackers’ accommodation in Coober Pedy in South Australia. And I stayed in a cave hotel in Matera, an ancient city carved into the soft rock in southern Italy. I’ve been down mine shafts, and I’ve been deep under the surface in concrete bunkers.

What Earthbox does, though, is turn your perspective inside out; it gives you an otherworldly view of the interior of the earth’s surface. It’s a silent space, no cellphones permitted, and there are no signs or people tasked with helping you figure out what you’re meant to be figuring out.

You can’t imagine in advance what being within such a strange environment will do to you. Then, once you are inside, there’s a fascination that’s somehow beyond the physical reality of it. You begin to notice the near-imperceptible trickles of water seeping through the exposed surface. You observe the texture of sand and sediment, the small pebbles embedded in the chamber’s walls. What you’re glimpsing is a miniature cross-section of the planet that sustains us. It can all get very touchy-feely.

There might be a rock-solid moment of connection with the raw earth where you contemplate the planet and nature and all the intricate systems that are in place.

It might be why some folks who have experienced Earthbox emerge at the other end claiming they feel “reborn”. It can feel somehow sacred, a hallowed space that brings on deep reflection, turns reality inside out.

‘Going back in time’

Earthbox is, on paper at least, terribly simple. A rectangular empty space 24m long by about 7.5m wide, its walls angled outwards as they rise. You don’t take an elevator to reach it; there aren’t even stairs. Instead, there’s a curved, sloping pathway so that you approach with a full-on view of the Helderberg Mountains in the distance, a low, domelike mound directly in front of you.

And then, quicker than expected, you’re inside, underground, with no daylight, and a permanent coolness that heightens the slight shock of being somewhere surreal.

“It’s like going back in time,” says Marina Busse, who conceived Earthbox, the inaugural project of Dream Commission, which Busse started together with fellow dreamer Brad Baard. Their vision is to create completely unique, one-off art-adjacent experiences that can “help reawaken our sense of childlike wonder that we tend to lose when we become adults”.

With Earthbox, Busse says she and Baard wanted to create an immersive experience that encourages engagement with, and contemplation of, what’s below our feet. “Inside Earthbox, the earth you’re standing on is 500-million years old,” Busse said. “That’s as old as when Africa and South America were still connected and called Gondwana. That pebble layer on the walls is an ancient riverbed from 2.5-million years ago.”

Creating something so seemingly simple was an engineering feat of note, greatly complicated by last year’s high rainfall. “The structure required these clay-like, completely dense Malmesbury residual soils,” says Busse. “It’s these specific soils that allowed us to have raw-earth walls, unmitigated, that didn’t require retention of any sort.”

A location scout suggested Lourensford, a wine farm in Somerset West with a large empty field available to rent. During excavation, water became a huge hurdle. “We’re situated directly between the mountains and the river, which was extremely challenging, especially as we were excavating throughout the wettest winter in about 200 years,” Busse says.

The plan had been to do the bulk of the excavation in summer, but the rains started in March, so most of the earthworks happened in winter; and there was rain every day in June.

To allow for the constant presence of water, Earthbox’s geo-engineers installed an intricate drainage system around the chamber. So, while there are no signs of aqueducts or channels, manholes have been sunk into the ground and sumps and pumps placed down below so that if the groundwater rises, it’s immediately pumped out.

The project, which opened to the public in November, is globally unique; Busse says it’s been created as “a very physical environment” in which human connection with the Earth can be fostered. “It wants to slow you down,” she says of the effect the space has on people, “so that you can connect with what is viscerally, physiologically happening in your body.”

That connection can be experienced with or without one of the audio guides available. There is a soothing 25-minute guided meditation that makes you feel invigorated and refreshed. Another, designed for anyone keen on the science and history, talks you through the geology. There’s also a guide for children.

Busse says the blank-canvas experience of the chamber can be daunting and “difficult to grasp” in this age of perpetual stimulation; the audio guides are a way of making sense of that perceived nothingness. A good idea is to first visit with an audio guide and then re-enter the chamber without it.

You can also visit for one of the early-morning yoga classes that are held before Earthbox opens to the public. The air is cool and crisp, the instructor’s voice like crystal, and there’s something strangely hallowed about the enfolding space, a weirdly wonderful connection with nature.

Occasional one-off events are scheduled. In May, for example, Zolani Mahola, who for years fronted Freshlyground, performed there — underground — to a small, rapturous audience. As did cellist S’celo-Chris Njapha and pianist Peter Lewis.

Also hugely popular is the monthly Earthbox Chef Series, when a notable culinary master prepares a multicourse meal with paired wines; they’re outrageously expensive but unlikely to be the sort of feast you’ll soon forget. And on June 1 there’s a clay workshop, a kind of hands-on therapy session to discover the soothing, meditative joy of using what comes out of the Earth to create something meaningful.

Whatever occasion takes you there, the idea is that just about anything can happen underground. Busse says: “There’s no agenda, no narrative about it. It’s just a very neutral, agnostic space that can be whatever you need it to be. Some people go inside and have profound moments and are moved to tears. Some can’t wait to get back to their screens.”

Whatever it is, though, it won’t be around forever. The initial plan was for Earthbox to close and be fully deconstructed at the end of April, but its closure has been suspended due to demand. Once it is ready for retirement, the rectangular space will be filled in and sealed and the patch in the Lourensford field will be made to look precisely as it was before excavation began over a year ago. No trace of its existence will remain.

* Earthbox visits are priced from R120 a person. Visit earthbox.co.za for more information

This article first appeared in Financial Mail.