I am a socially engaged artist, working collaboratively with communities to co-create projects that connect people, place, and environment. This approach is at the heart of Wild Uplands Wonderland, it is through co-creation with the children and their schools that M19 Blanket Mire was born.
I had the privilege of co-leading the project, the schools’ engagement element of the BD25 Wild Uplands project, with Lucy Lee of the Yorkshire Peat Partnership, part of The Wildlife Trusts. Together, we took Year 5 and 6 pupils from six local primary schools on a creative journey into Yorkshire’s peatlands, exploring how these hidden landscapes inspire art and why they are so precious.
The artworks featured in the BD25 project were created by Monira Al Qadiri, Meherunnisa Asad with Studio Lél, Vanessa da Silva, and Steve Messam. Visiting these works opened the children’s eyes to multiple ways of seeing the landscape and sparked their own creative responses.
In our first session, the children became botanical illustrators, drawing the unique plants of the peatlands while learning about the diversity of life these wetland habitats support. Next, we explored Penistone Country Park, encountering the four Wild Uplands artworks. Walking across the moor, the children reflected on how the works made them feel and how the landscape itself could inspire new ideas.
Back in school, we brought their observations to life. Using a wax-resist batik technique, the children translated their drawings onto silk panels, each representing a peatland plant simplified into patterns. Thirty panels came together to form M19 Blanket Mire, a code scientists use to describe deep peat habitats with a specific balance of plants.
We installed the mosaic as a fifth, temporary artwork in the upland landscape. Though fleeting, drone photography captured the children’s creativity. As a lasting legacy, we were also able to gift each school an art pack with quality drawing materials and zines to continue exploring creativity and nature. M19 Blanket Mire stands as their pledge to celebrate, protect, and care for Yorkshire’s precious peatlands.
