Moss workshop – Antony Hall

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 down and attending to the marginal might reframe both ecological and cultural perception

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.

These workshops explore Manchester’s post-industrial and regenerated urban spaces. By employing macro photography and ground-level perspectives, we investigated overlooked areas and subtle aspects of the urban environment, encompassing both architectural and biological elements, as well as human and non-human interactions. Participants also collected small samples of moss to create micro-terrariums, serving as a living archive of their experiences. This workshop aimed to raise awareness of the often unnoticed elements within the urban landscape.

This workshop was developed through a residency with Gallery Oldham [2021] and an encounter with Glassball Studios and Alison Lloyd (check out this post for more information on her idea of micro-navigation).