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Arts & Engagement
Exchanging knowledge respectfully
The Arts and Engagement strand of CCC evolved organically from the Peatland Connections Project. Peatland Connections was initiated by CCC to reach communities beyond the partners and stakeholders we normally work with, through integrating arts and sciences approaches. As a funded project within the Galloway Glens Landscape Partnership, it concluded in December 2023.
At the end of the project, experiencing and recognising that creativity engages and moves us in ways that scientific data can’t, CCC created a new position to bring together art and ecology in innovative and imaginative ways and to embed art approaches within CCC.
An embedded artist...
This shift from project focused to embedded practice opens-up a host of possibilities enabling us to work overtime and across seasons in uncharted ways. With an artist in the team, we can spontaneously respond to work in the field and peatland research to contribute to new knowledge, generate wider appreciation of peatlands, and create opportunities for people to connect to our precious peatland environments.
Alongside work created by the CCC artist, we remain committed to commissioning artists to create new work in relation to peatlands, land use, and climate crises.
The Arts and Engagement strand will reach out into communities, and, on occasion, co-created work will be produced. We believe in the importance of working with an ethical conscience. Accordingly, we have produced an ethical framework that includes:
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Environmental Ethics
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Fundamental Human Ethics
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Ethical Socio-Ecological Art and Engagement
Our Ethical Framework sets out CCC's intentions with respect to how we work in and with nature, how we work with people and communities, and our considerations when purchasing materials.
our art-embedded projects
Peaty Pockets - Ground Up Restorative Action
We talk about what we are doing, and we share thoughts, insights, and musings.
We have our designated tasks, our roles at CCC; yet our inquisitiveness extends beyond just getting the job done. We question, have ideas, and come up with suppositions.
From this inquisitiveness and an eye for peatyness, peaty pockets came into our conversations. A peaty pocket is an area of peatland that is smaller than the massive multiple hectare sites we restore. Beyond that, there is no actual definition. We do not know where they are or how many there are. We do not know what condition they are in, but having chanced upon some, we know they exist, discretely and largely unmapped in our landscape.
The Crichton Carbon Centre has spent 15 years developing and delivering peatland restoration projects to bring back climate resilience, biodiversity, and reduce emissions into the atmosphere. However, our work has highlighted where peatlands are being overlooked for restoration and management and a lack of awareness and understanding of why these areas need to be looked after. ‘Peaty pockets’, small discrete areas of peat bog interspersed in the landscape are being discounted from programmes of restoration and management as they are often only a few hectares in size, not well mapped, and at a scale insufficient to meet current funding criteria. This is a great concern as they are still important for climate change and are often the peatlands in and around our rural communities. We need people from beyond our sector to have the chance to better understand what is happening locally and nationally on peatlands for climate change and for more people to have the chance to get involved in restoration. But first we have to find the peaty pockets. We are doing this through a socially engaged arts approach and the co-creation of a deep mapping artwork.
Starting with the people who have contacted us about a ‘bit of peat’ on their land, we have visited with a peat probe and a soil core. Conversations have naturally occurred connected to place and tacit knowledge with stories located to the geography, land use, and community past and present. These conversations are building a rich picture, which is being creatively captured through writing and mapping.
If you think you have a peaty pocket and would like to know more, contact info@carboncentre.org or k.morrison@carboncentre.org
Moss of Cree
The Moss of Cree
A peatland restored
From a Sitka spruce plantation
Back to a bog
This land, black as coal below its mossy cover
Has gone through a massive upheaval
Upheaving spruce trees and their trunks
Stumps upturned and buried in the peat
This little gem on the Wigtown peninsula is a sight of special interest to us. We restored it, working closely with the owner, who bought the land wanting to see it transformed back into a bog, a moss: The Moss of Cree
We are monitoring the Moss of Cree
Scientifically
And
Creatively
Tracking changes over time to record how it recovers
We are letting the Moss do its thing
There will be
No planting
No weeding
No removing of native species
Creatively, we will:
Listen
sniff
explore
wander & wonder
take note of what’s happening
what’s changing
what’s encroaching
what’s dying
who visits and where they tread
We will:
photograph
record
write
draw
be with
move across
and pause to reflect and express the Moss in non-scientific ways that take note of, and voice, changes over time
Creatively
Follow The Moss of Cree’s evolving story on substack https://substack.com/@carboncentre
