Peatland Exhibition and Cinema - part of the IUCN UK Peatland Programme Conference 2024, featuring Art and Energy’s Naomi Wright with The Mossy Carpet artwork.

5pm – 7pm - Poster and exhibition session

Join our sponsors and exhibitors from across the peatland community to learn more about the research, restoration and engagement taking place across the UK. Try your hand at Peatland ACTION’s digger simulator, explore biodiverse soundscapes from different peatland habitats, or find out more about the amazing technologies being used to measure and monitor peatlands. 

6pm – 7pm - Peatland Poetry and Cinema (Auditorium, open to the public) 

Featuring the premiere of ‘Sphagnum Portraits’, a short film jointly commissioned by the IUCN UK Peatland Programme, this eclectic mix of sound and vision takes you on a journey through the special peatlands and people that make the UK such a wonderful place. 

Welcome: Jane Akerman, IUCN UK Peatland Programme 

The most important plant in the world (2024)’ from the series Sphagnum Portraits’ introduced by Caroline Vitzthum

‘Connecting communities through citizen science and the arts’ introduced by Lucy Lee and Beth Thomas, Yorkshire Peat Partnership 

'The Special Blanket' poetry reading, Roxane Andersen, University of the Highlands and Islands 

‘The Mossy Carpet’ introduced by Naomi Wright, Art and Energy 

‘STACKS’ and ‘Curlew, Curlew, Curlew!’ introduced by Rose Ferraby, University of Exeter 

The British Bryological Society Autumn meeting and AGM

Art and Energy and The Mossy Carpet will be at the 2024 AGM and paper reading meeting of The British Bryological Society (BBS), held in the Reed Hall, University of Exeter on Saturday 7th September.

We’ve been working with members of the BBS to learn more about mosses and bryophytes and to share our love of these tiny plants with a wider audience. We’ll be going along to the AGM to share our moss inspired creative activities including The Mossy Carpet.

Further details of the wider BBS Autumn event:

There will be the usual field meeting on Sunday 8th, but there will also be field meetings on Thursday 5th and Friday 6th of September, probably including visits to Dartmoor.

If you would be interested in attending please contact the meetings secretary Philippa Thompson: philippabryology@outlook.com

Join us to celebrate Bog Day on Sunday 28th July 2024. We’ve recorded a little film to help you learn more about mosses with Art and Energy’s Naomi Wright.

There’s also the chance to listen to our audio book A Mossy Story and feel inspired to take tiny actions for a brighter greener future.

If we’ve inspired you to love bogs and peatlands then there are many more resources on the Bog Day website which is managed by the IUCN UK Peatland Programme.

Thanks to our funders for supporting our work on Dartmoor to restore the peatland habitat and our wider work to create The Mossy Carpet.

Trowlesworthy Farm Creative Picnic  

A walk and creative picnic to Trowlesworthy Farm, a place that holds ancient history, wildlife of special significance, a beautiful river. This farm grazes animals on it’s commons, and hopes to make the most of it’s amazing and atmospheric features to visitors. Bex Blades will take us on a tour from Cadover Bridge of about 2 miles, some of it over rough ground and uphill. (4 miles in total.) 

We will make fleece nests and embroidered mossy blankets to grow sphagnum moss for repair od peatland. 

Toilet on site. 

Meet at Cadover Bridge carpark (free parking here)

Making and restoring the Moor at Challacombe Farm.

Meet at Challacombe Farm, there is some car parking on site but please car share where possible.

We will be celebrating progress with making The Mossy Carpet in the ruins of the first farmhouse built here. 

We will be looking for moss and helping to restore the wet and peaty areas of the farm. A short and easy tour of the farm will show the wide range of action taken to make this place special, a regenerative farm that looks to the future. 

Tea and cake will be offered during the event.

Challacombe Farm has a toilet on site. 

All welcome to join us

Join Art and Energy for a free guided walk from Ivybridge train station up to Hangershell, Harford Moor with creative activities on the moor

A walk up on to Harford Moor from Ivybridge Railway station car park. This walk is about 2.5 miles (total up to 5 miles) on a gentle but stony or boggy incline that reaches the peak at Hangershell, where we will provide a drink and cake, and an opportunity to have a picnic. You don’t need to do the whole walk , and can turn back when you have had your fill.

Our guides will show us how the landscape has been formed. As we walk we will look for mosses that were the first plants on land 450m years ago. There will be stories of sphagnum moss, peat and carbon and climate change.

From commons to enclosed land, Dartmoor holds a long human history going back thousands of years still visible in the landscape. It also has pressure to grow food, provide leisure activities and an economy that keeps it all going. There will be people on hand to tell us more. There will be a farmer helping to guide us through the checks and balances that are chosen.

At the top there will be a chance to work with felted fleece, to plant sphagnum nests and to contemplate the carbon and energy in the view. The peatland formed around the oldest mountains on the planet through to the newest wind turbines and solar panels.

You can bring your own magic and art materials if you wish and share your ways of making in Dartmoor.

All welcome to join us.

Meet at Ivybridge railway station car park - free parking here for the duration of our event.

Please note the change of start time to 11am - changed to fit the train times to Ivybridge for everyone wanting to travel by public transport. Train from Plymouth arrives 11.04am. Train from Exeter arrives 11.16am - please let us know if you will be arriving from Exeter.

Join Art and Energy and botanist and bryologist Tim Purches & ecologist, entomologist and artist John Walters for a guided wildlife walk on Dartmoor.

10am - 12.30pm at Venford Reservoir, Dartmoor

Suggested donation £5 per person

We'll be walking along the pipeline path, taking a steady pace as we look for mosses with Tim and wildlife with John. Tim will help us identify mosses and liverworts - you may like to bring a hand lens or magnifier. John is a font of all knowledge for all types of wildlife and in particular minibeasts (invertebrates) and we'll be looking in mossy holes and corners for bugs and signs of wildlife using moss for their homes.

The pipeline path will take us through the surrounding woodland, it is a natural surface path which may have stones and uneven areas.

Meet from 9.40am - ready to walk at 10am

Meet at the car park at the north end of Venford Reservoir, just to the west of the dam, free parking here.

Google Maps: https://maps.app.goo.gl/ZsvkJxiRiQ5SMpNh6

Grid reference: SX685712

What3Words: pencils.vanilla.anchorman

Please car share where possible

Bring your own refreshments

Dress for the weather and wear sturdy sensible shoes

Join Heligan Wildlife Coordinator, Toby Davies H along with local botanist Matt Stribley, for a stroll around the beautiful wildlife rich Heligan Estate exploring for mosses and liverworts.

We'll head into The Lost Valley and owing to Heligans topography, parts of the route are very steep and not easily accessible. If you are unsure whether this session is suitable for you, please contact the team at Heligan.

We ask that participants come dressed appropriately for the Cornish weather and wear sturdy footwear. We also invite participants to bring mosses/liverwort field guides if they have them, but there is no need to buy anything specifically for this event

£10.00, with a donation from proceeds going to The Art and Energy Collective

Arrive from 9am for a 9:30am start, where we will meet outside the ticket office. Aiming to finish by 12:30pm.