Re:Peat Layer

Re:Peat, Layers of Peat in Northern Finland, a Look and Listen is an EDUFI Fulbright Finland Fellowship research project by visual artist Anne Yoncha and science researchers Oili Tarvainen, Anne Tolvanen, and Anna-Liisa Välimaa of Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke), composer Daniel Townsend of University of Florida, and Gerard Sapés of University of Minnesota. The four drawings below are one of the outputs of the project. Each is made of about 20 layers of images of Sphagnum moss at a conserved peatland site, with only the negative space worked.

These works aim to highlight the space around the Sphagnum plant, since this is the anaerobic environment the organism creates which makes the peatland ecosystem so distinctive; similarly to many of the ways we construct our human environments, Sphagnum engineers its own surroundings. The work also hopefully raises questions about land use and conservation—exploring how Finland navigates complex issues of natural resources and bioeconomy may help us in the US approach our own ecological “home” from a new angle.

Click on an image below for more detail: