The Moss workshop explores the overlooked ecologies of the city. Equipped with ecological ‘probe kits’, participants move slowly through the city exploring damp walls, gutters, and cracks, using microscopes and cameras to encounter mosses and other life forms, usually hidden from view. The process of looking closely and documenting these organisms invites reflection on the more-than-human world and the ways in which our tools; lenses, photographs, notes enhance our perceptions and mediate what we see and value. By shifting attention from fast, screen-based media to the intimate scale of moss, the workshop creates a space to question how visibility, evidence, and care are distributed across environments and societies. By combining hands-on ecology with reflective media practices, the moss workshop asks us to consider how slowing
Tag: walking
Morecambe Bay walk
Moss identification card deck
This card pack was developed for a moss walk for the Eco pedagogies Symposium 2024. The walk traced a route between the Firs Botanical Gardens and Manchester Museum. In this iteration of the moss workshop, I discussed my emerging "methodology of moss" and the role of art as a perception-changing device. To develop the card pack I photographed each species of moss I found along the route and created a card for each one, including information on the numerous biomes encountered. These cards not only aid my learning and memorisation of moss species but also include prompts, instructions, texts, and readings that will enable others to facilitate their own walking and moss workshops in the future.
Boundary detectors – mosscillator walk
A day of field work, walking and talking with @glassball.studio we walked across a segment of the Peak District national park boundary, connected our boundary detector up to a fence to create a strange radio like circuit (also connected with a bat detectors as signal transducer) we could hear strange sounds emanating from the either. Initially we discovered we could almost perfectly receive Radio 4. With some further tweaking / breaking we were able to get a multitude of voices - “Hello…Hello… “ one said as if speaking to us. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Antony Hall (@tonazoid)
Boundary Detectors workshop / Part – 1
1/09/2022 Workshop / Longdendale Environmental Centre / GUIDEline project with Glassball Studios: We met at Longdendale environmental centre for a day of walking and micro exploration, following a segment of the peak district boundary. The idea was to walk slowly, looking closely while collecting samples (microscopic creatures, plants, minerals, sounds), and explore how these things interact within the hypothetical space of the boundary space. Above: Image by Cora Glasser / Glassball Studios. We discussed 'boundary layers' the spaces or microenvironments existing on surfaces or between objects and the free-flowing stream of air (gasses, humidity) and light. Mosses exist at specific boundary layers, miniature forests which act like environmental bubbles, trapping moisture, and creating shelter. Moss and other small plants Algae, and Lichen
GUIDEline Micro-Commission
Exploring the nature and origins of the first National Park and its boundary. I have been commissioned as part of the GUIDEline project by Glassball Studio. Over the summer Alison Lloyd and I will be working alongside Glassball, continuing a conversation that started back in 2021, bringing our practices to the boundary of the Peak District National Park, using the Longdendale Activity Centre as a base from which to explore. Here are some outcomes, ideas and works in progress so far... Walk with Tim Cambel-Green View this post on Instagram A post shared by Dr. Antony Hall (@tonazoid) Walking with Tim - exploring these
Moss Map
During a residency with Gallery Oldham (2021) I worked with bryological (moss) specimens collected from the local area 150 years ago. This inspired a series of meandering walking workshops focused on revisiting and recollecting mosses from my local area. Meandering is a form of walking fieldwork where participants engage in a series of "focused distractions"—activities like collecting, sampling from the environment, and microphotography—to redirect their attention and uncover alternative perspectives. The Moss Map serves as a multi-layered, always changing, exploration of experience and memory, documenting a meandering research journey. See Bryophytes project with Gallery Oldham Images from the 'Proximity' exhibition At Abingdon Studios 26 Aug – 16 September 2021. The 'Moss Map' and bottle terrariums were created as part of the bryophytes project
Contouring the Boundary
Reflections on Contouring the Boundary I took part in ‘Contouring the Boundary’ a walk with Alison Lloyd [part of ‘Guide Lines’ [https://guideline.org.uk] and Glassball as part of their Guideline project. Alison described the walk as a 'micro navigation. We slowly walked part of the Peak District National Park boundary. During the walk, we were introduced to the idea of navigating using contours and a compass. It was good to be out with others since I have become so accustomed to working at a distance from others in recent times. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Glassball Studio (@glassball.studio) In particular,
Nostoc
Fieldwork: Bryophytes collected in a neglected building site
Fieldwork: Bryophytes at Snipe Clough
Gallery Oldham residency: Bryophytes Project
I will be doing a 3-month residency [funded by the NWCDTP (North West Consortium Doctoral Training Partnership) at Gallery Oldham (May to July 2021). I will be working in response to plant specimens in the natural history collection, specifically Moss (or even more specifically 'bryophytes' and other plants without roots). Since access to the gallery will be limited for some time, I will be working at distance (walking and cycling) revisiting historical sites of collection and re-collecting specimens. I will be talking with local experts, volunteers, environmental scientists, and other natural history enthusiasts, vital component parts of the museums as an ongoing collection process. Specimen envelope: cinclidioidesBryophyte Book Images of objects from the Gallery Oldham Natural History collection, Thanks to Patricia
Para-Lab moss collecting Meander
A walking workshop with para lab. I created this bottle with instructions and hand-drawn illustrations, a different one for each bottle. We walked around manchester and collected mosses from some unusual sites, the route took us through some back streets and along the canal. Finally, we stopped at 'Home' constructed bottle gardens while chatting and drinking coffee.
Para Lab – Meander~Delta
On the 28th / 06/2020 para lab met up at Brunclough reservoir. Everyone was tasked with creating ’a device to test the material properties of a thing’. I produced an edition of 15 Meander~Delta objects [drawings and text contained within a petri dish] with which to collect things and make notes, I also brought a homemade tardigrade extractor [salad spinner]. The wind and rain on occasion proved to be too disrupting to do any detailed work – or too difficult even speak to each other… https://www.instagram.com/p/CB-3MrkllD6/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet https://www.instagram.com/p/CCBafc3F-2n/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet