Ivybridge, Okehampton & Princetown with Dartmoor’s Dynamic Landscapes
Art and Energy are pleased to report great success working in partnership with Dartmoor National Park and their Dartmoor’s Dynamic Landscapes project team.
In February 2024, Art and Energy’s Naomi delivered a mini tour of Dartmoor with The Mossy Carpet artwork engaging communities in three separate river catchment areas of Dartmoor. Our three locations were Ivybridge at Ivybridge Library, Okehampton at the Eco-hub and Princetown at Fox Tor Cafe.
The Mossy Carpet was on display throughout with Naomi and members of Dartmoor National Park staff on hand to deliver free creative engagement workshops. All the workshops were offered free of charge with participants offered the chance to look closely at mosses and create moss inspired woolly pompoms and textile tufts to add to The Mossy Carpet artwork. The Tardigrade Telephone was also on hand asking participants to record messages sharing their views on nature in the surrounding area. Dartmoor National Park staff were keen to talk to participants about what they like about the Dartmoor areas on their doorstep and how they access these areas.
Local schools and community groups were invited to join us alongside members of the local community who just turned up on the day.
We are pleased to share our engagement figures for the mini-tour of Dartmoor:
Ivybridge Library: 444 participants & 2,655 wider audience engagement
Okehampton Eco-hub: 122 participants & 134 wider audience engagement
Princetown Fox Tor Cafe: 125 participants & 311 wider audience engagement
Thank you to everyone who came along and stopped to chat and to create for The Mossy Carpet and to all the venues who made us very welcome.
Our thanks to Dartmoor National Park through the Dartmoor’s Dynamic Landscapes project for their funding support to deliver this programme of events across Dartmoor.
Dartmoor’s Dynamic Landscapes is an area-based partnership for nature and people.
Our vision is to create more naturally resilient landscapes, to better understand our heritage, and to enable people to connect sustainably to their place in a number of river catchments on Dartmoor. The programme will focus on the river catchments of the Okement, Dart, Webburn, Erme and Yealm. Included within that are some of our best landscapes – moorland bogs, grassland, wetlands, wooded valleys and riverside settlements that act as ‘gateways’ to the National Park.
The partnership is currently in the development phase. This means we submitted an outline proposal for funding to the National Lottery Heritage Fund (NLHF), they granted limited funding to allow Partners to consult on and work up detailed proposals. We’re drawing up projects ranging from evidence gathering and research, community grant funding, improved access and interpretation, engagement with the arts to look at the potential for new events and small-scale trials focusing on habitat improvement initiatives. This development work will culminate with a finished submission to the NLHF in August 2024. If successful, programme delivery will be from 2025 to 2030, where partners will deliver a series of projects.
The partnership is led by Dartmoor National Park Authority, RSPB, Sustrans and Woodland Trust. Other organisations involved in the scheme are Environment Agency, Shallowford Farm, South Devon National Landscape, South West Lakes Trust, South West Water and Town/Parish Councils.
Ivybridge Library
Fox Tor Café Princetown
The Ecohut - Okehampton Town Mayor, Cllr Allenton Fisher and Rosie from The National Trust came along to see The Mossy Carpet and the mosses through the digital microscope.
