For the See Here Now exhibition in Grizedale Forest, Kate Foster shares two Peatland Figures; and has also contributed a film made in collaboration with multidisciplinary artist, pantea.
MENDING THE BLANKET: FILM
Peat is a precious wetland soil that creates a blanket over moors and uplands. Too often this ‘blanket’ is worn and degraded by different land uses, meaning habitat is lost, less water is absorbed in the uplands, and carbon is released to the atmosphere.
This film celebrates a restoration project in a remote valley of Southern Scotland. Kate and pantea made this during lockdown in Iran and the Netherlands from shared memories of Scottish peatlands. They learned about technical aspects of restoration of these complex ecologies and wanted to insert emotions of care, wonder and curiosity. Mending the Blanket has been shown in policy and scientific settings as well as the arts.
Peatland Figures
Industrial mining of peat bogs revealed both Bog Bodies and Will o’ the Wisps. Folk tales across Northern Europe tell of flickering lights – which might have arisen with the oxidation of marsh gases. Peat-diggers uncovered dark leathery remains of bog bodies which continue to fascinate people.
Kate made the series Peatland Figures during in art-science residencies in the Netherlands. She wanted to enliven scientific discourse and symbolise different human connections to peatlands. Bog Woman and Wisp seem to have strong individual characters, which can help prompt conversation about the tangles of life and death in contemporary peatlands.
For eight weeks, these two figures will be dwelling in the gallery of Grizedale Forest, their fully-dressed bodies held up by slender beaver-gnawed branches.
This blog is an extract of the blog that first appeared on Kate’s ‘mean sea level’ website here: https://peatcultures.wordpress.com/
To explore the work of Pantea, collaborator on the film Mending the Blanket, visit her website here.
For more about Kate Foster, read her profile here.