projects
Burgeon Bog
Exploring natural habitat restoration
This project focuses on a seven acre bog land beside my home. Turf has not been cut there for over forty years. Because of where it is situated it isn’t accessible to sheep, so in that time it has become an overgrown scrubland. The terrain is difficult to navigate, but when I slowly wander into it I can see the gradual transformation of the bog land back into a thriving, biodiverse habitat.
Through a series of drawings, prints,photographs and film I plan to document the process of re-wilding during the summer and autumn months, looking at the potential for regeneration when people allow nature to reclaim its space.
with:
I made these small art works (15cm x 15cm) as a response to many walks I took exploring an abandoned Bogland as part of the Wilderland Project. The works are informed by memory and instinct and the notion of nature being left to recover without human intervention. They are made by experimenting with materials and methods with no particular outcome in mind. I bound the finished piece together in a handmade notebook.
May finds on the Bog
Some wildflowers and plants I found in May between the bogland and the lakeshore: bogbean, horsetail, primroses, birch, moss, brambles, bracken fronds, willow catkins, violet and marsh cinquefoil.
June finds on the bog
The trees, shrubs, grasses and flowers are growing vigorously now, creating rich, green patchworks of vegetation wherever I look. Unfortunately I also found some rhododendrons growing alongside self seeded oak, birch and mountain ash trees.
Other plants I encountered were royal fern, Ireland’s largest native fern, orchids, bog cotton and cross-leaved heath. Between the bog and the lake I found growing yellow flag iris, marsh marigold, bird’s-foot trefoil and hemlock among other common wildflowers.
