An extract from SUBMERGE artist Kate Foster’s most recent blog post. To read the post in full visit her blog here.
Kate joined in our recent craftivism workshops, wearing Sphagnum on her sleeves (more on that here), inspiring a love of moss blog post.
Living with water is vital around the Solway, and I’m discovering that Sphagnum is a kind of aqueous superhero. A single Sphagnum moss consists of a strand of water-holding cells, which can collectively form raised bogs many metres deep, over thousands of years.
Complete raised bogs are now rare. Dogden Moss in the Eastern Borders and Kirkconnel Flow to the west of Dumfries offer glimpses of what the landscape in Southern Scotland might have looked like before bogs were drained and excavated. As I begin a tour of mosses, I have come across the equivalent of mountain-top removal inflicted upon them. My eye is becoming attuned to tawny strips on the low horizon.
‘This human-made drainage ditch has been dammed, a recent reversal of policy. Peatland Action is a restoration programme co-ordinated by Scottish Natural Heritage: the reasons to conserve peatbogs are beautifully laid out in the National Peatland Plan. Importantly, peatbogs sequester carbon and are sinks for atmospheric carbon. This process is starting in the blocked ditch at Kirkconnel, as Sphagnum strands start a slow and steady occupation.’
Kate has been working with Nadiah Rosli on her recent work Peatland Actions, which is part of our SUBMERGE exhibition. SUBMERGE runs daily from 10-5pm until Saturday evening, 12th December.
Kate and Nadiah will be speaking as part of our Question of Scale event on Thursday, 10th December from 6pm
