‘in slow tempo’ (four mobiles), made with Ilkley Grammar School Post-16 art students in response to Oughtershaw Moss in Upper Wharfedale.
The work is part of a Yorkshire Peat Partnership project at Nethergill Farm and can be seen at the exhibition ‘Slow storytelling: Communities, art and peat’ at the farm until October 2026 (details at the bottom of the page).
Nethergill Farm is on the Dales Way in a remote and beautiful part of the Yorkshire Dales at the head of the Wharfe valley. It is home to a diversity of peatland species rarely found in the Dales and the owners, the Thomas family, are committed to creating a sustainable wildlife haven and long-term conservation project.
The students travelled up the Wharfe valley to the farm on a very rainy November day to experience the bog, see the source of the river Wharfe which they live alongside further downstream in Ilkley, and generate responsive collaborative artwork in the activity barn.
Up on Oughtershaw Moss the group heard from Lucy Lee at the Yorkshire Peat Partnership about the habitat of the bog and the work that the Yorkshire Peat Partnership is doing to restore the peatlands.
Back in the activity barn, the group then sketched out ideas, using images of sphagnum moss species and their cellular structures.
From their drawings, each participant made a 3-dimensional shape by cutting, soaking, laminating and shaping layers of wood veneer (FSC Sapele).
With these 15 shapes we have made four mobiles. Each participant gave a word to their shape, and these have formed the descriptive titles of the individual mobiles:
in slow tempo (1):
calluna, feathered, spreading branches, balance
calluna, feathered, spreading branches, balance
calluna, feathered, spreading branches, balance
in slow tempo (2):
branching, stem, lunar, dance
branching, stem, lunar, dance
branching, stem, lunar, dance
in slow tempo (3):
stem, spiral, floating
stem, spiral, floating
stem, spiral, floating
in slow tempo (4):
protection, ever-growing bud, bud, fragile
protection, ever-growing bud, bud, fragile
protection, ever-growing bud, bud, fragile
The collaboratively-made mobiles celebrate the bog as an organic, ever-changing community in which the balance and health of the whole depend on each tiny part.
Slow storytelling: Communities, art and peat is at Nethergill Farm until October 2026.
Project conceived and run by Yorkshire Peat Partnership
Nethergill Farm is on the Dales Way and the exhibition is free to visit.
For further information, please contact: info@nethergill.co.uk 01756 380 581
Nethergill Farm, Oughershaw, Buckden nr Skipton, BD23 5JS
Students from Ilkley Grammar School (Post-16) were accompanied by Head of Art Claire Harris and Art Technician Mel Waller
Images of the mobiles are by David Lindsay
Images of sphagnum species and cellular structures kindly provided by Claire Halpin, British Bryological Society.
‘in slow tempo‘ is a quote from the chapter about sphagnum moss in Gathering Moss by Robin Wall Kimmerer.
More information about the project:
The barn and exhibition space at Nethergill Farm, which looks out on to Oughtershaw Moss.