Gnáthóga Nádúrtha (Natural Habitats): Expanding connections with human and nonhuman communities of the bog

The Gnáthóga Nádúrtha programme is an ambitious arts-led inquiry and collaborative series of interventions across three natural heritage peatland habitats (Drummin Bog, Carlow; Ballydermot Bog, Kildare; and Girley Bog, Meath) supported by the Irish Arts Council Invitation to Collaborate Scheme.

The project foregrounds the importance of inclusive creative-led ecological art practices to foster community conversations and on-site activities to inspire awareness and care for these important natural heritage sites and a deeper understanding of inclusive environmental and social sustainability aims for climate and biodiversity action.

The Gnáthóga Nádúrtha programme is led by Carlow County Council Arts Office, in partnership with Kildare and Meath County Councils and the communities around these sites.

The project involved collaboration with key partners: Creative Drummin of the Drummin Bog Project, Creative Rathangan Meitheal and Girley Bog Meitheal, Dr Anita McKeown Future Focus21c, Dr Cathy Fitzgerald Haumea Ecoversity, and artists Jules Michael (Carlow Creative Drummin ), Monica de Bath (Kildare), A Bog’s Life Blog (Meath), interested county creative practitioners and the wider communities of South County Carlow, Kildare and Meath.

The project actions occurred across the three sites, with the focus on three strands of activities.

These included a community mapping and broader place-based mapping of the three sites and their communities;
comprehensive values-based ecoliteracy training for council staff, artists and cultural practitioners in the three counties;
and mentoring emerging ecological creative-led practices of the participating county lead artists, Jules Michael, Monica de Bath and Kate Flood.

Site Visits and Community Mapping

The project mappings began with three site visits by Dr. Anita McKeown in 2022, to meet with the artists and hear more about their previous work and engagement at the sites. This was followed by three full team site visits which included artists and staff from the local authorities. These involved initial meetings and team introductions, as well as facilitated observational mappings to build connections and collaborations and facilitate a better understanding of the site.

The approach to Creative Placemaking used in the project (developed by Anita McKeown – Future Focus21c) encourages a participatory understanding of place, helping to uncover the web of complex relationships and systems that exist in local places that may be invisible due to their tacit or intangible nature. This offered a systematic approach that provides a holistic perspective and harnesses local capacities and networks, embedding the non-human world and eco-social justice in all activities.

**Site visits to Girley Bog Meath, Drummin Bog Carlow and Ballydermot Bog Kildare respectively**

Ecoliteracy Training and Mentoring
– Haumea Ecoversity

From Autumn 2022 to Spring 2023, comprehensive 7-week online courses on values-based learning through the ‘ESD and the Earth Charter Course’ were provided by Dr Cathy Fitzgerald and her collaborator Dr Nikos Patedakis through Haumea Ecoversity.

Course participants, including lead county creative practitioners Jules Michael, Monica De Bath and Kate Flood along with other interested creative practitioners from the three counties – learned of the two-decade UN-mandated global shift in education toward inclusive sustainability aims and why the ethical principles of the peoples’ and UNESCO-endorsed Earth Charter provide vital guiding principles for this project and activities in communities for the UN Sustainable Development Goals and sustainability in general.

County Council Arts Office/ Arts Department staff were also introduced to ecoliteracy and the Earth Charter and its ethical and values-based approach to foster engagement to inspire and guide inclusive community action for sustainability.

Prior to this project, the participating county lead creative practitioners, Jules Michael, Monica de Bath and Kate Flood had completed the 7-week Essential Ecoliteracy for Creative Professionals course or workshop. In this project, to develop their emergent ecological (eco-social) art practices, these creative practitioners were also provided with 1-to-1 mentoring sessions, both individually and together as a group by Dr Cathy Fitzgerald during the summer of 2023.

Studio Visits and Emerging Ecological (eco-social) Art Practices

The three participating county lead creative practitioners, Jules Michael, Monica de Bath and Kate Flood visited each other’s studios for a day spent connecting and collaborating, sharing ideas, food, books and stories and working together, internalising and revisiting ideas and outcomes from the mapping phase of the project and ecoliteracy training and mentoring. These days provided an opportunity to reflect and absorb all the information uncovered in the earlier phases, to explore new avenues, discover supports and make new connections.

Following conversations during these studio visits, the three creative practitioners linked with Rob Gandola, Herpetological Society of Ireland who assisted the groups in making a successful application to the NPWS Recording Projects grant.

The result was a series of workshops organised by each creative practitioner for their associated county wetland group, aimed at building capacity so the wetland restoration group members and volunteers can enjoy, record and help preserve populations of native amphibians and reptiles through citizen engagement. For this project, the creative practitioners formed expanded connections and knowledge about both human and non-human communities. Each of the county’s creative practitioners has also sourced objects to work with to promote community conversations about the wetland area, its community of life and how wetlands thriving support healthy regions.

**Objects have symbolic and cultural value and become a vehicle for sharing memories and stories**

Gnáthóga Nádúrtha will conclude in Autumn 2023 with three creative-led ecological art practice events on each county wetland, involving the three lead county creative practitioners.

Jules Michael, Monica de Bath and Kate Flood will share stories of objects they have created or chosen to promote community reflection and conversation on the symbolic and cultural value of each wetland area. These events aim to promote community conversation and engagement for sustainability awareness and ‘action’ between and on each of the three sites for each county.

Jules Michael, Monica de Bath and Kate Flood see their developing a physical object as a physical manifestation of the overall project to ignite a shift in community conversations toward awareness and care of these significant natural heritage sites – in a butter firkin, in a replica hut, a and a cabinet of curiosities respectively. Presenting these three symbolic objects and sharing the stories they tell, will activate, on-site public-facing engagement to the Gnáthóga Nádúrtha programme.

These objects and their presentations are specifically designed by each creative practitioner to create inclusive, collaborative creative activities while giving a physical indication and making real this method of working as a means to aid awareness for action to safeguard our peatlands, non-human neighbours and our surrounding communities.

Past 3 Natural Habitats | Gnáthôga Nádúrtha Programme News

See background to the development of the 3- County Natural Habitats | Gnáthóga Nádúrtha (Natural Habitats) Programme: from Creative Drummin here