Gathering Moss
A digital landscape populated with artistic ideas made in response to the climate emergency.
Image from Gathering Moss project 'Illogical Love' by participants Sooah Kwak and Chanu Lee 2021
Made by
Art Centre Nabi
Art Center Nabi aims to act as an intermediary that transforms cultural desires into vital activities. Our goal is formed around the idea of humanising technology and that technology is fully integrated with human cultural life, to open a new space for creative practices. Art Center Nabi acts to ‘critique’ contemporary culture independent from technological benefits; use ‘creativity’ to open minds and enable new forms of expression; create ‘community’ where ideas are shared and a new world is dreamed of. Art Center Nabi is at the center of this new culture, where artistic sensibility is combined with the technological possibility to bring out the power of change and creativity.Bang & Lee
Bang & Lee is an artist duo based in Seoul, South Korea. For over fifteen years, the collective has worked with a wide range of new media, immersive space, and site-specific projects in South Korea and abroad.Working with
Victoria Tillotson
Victoria is Watershed's Talent Development Lead, supporting a phenomenal team of producers, editors and content creators to make an actual difference in the world.
Martin O'Leary
As Studio Community Lead, Martin supports our community of residents in their creative and technical work.Gathering Moss is a digital landscape populated with artistic ideas made in response to the climate emergency. It invites visitors to explore, to imagine the future of our rapidly heating world, to be hopeful and to act.
Gathering Moss was terraformed by a group of young artists from South Korea and the UK who connected through a 5-day Creative Camp, plus, South Korean media artists Bang & Lee, who present hybrid works in response to the environment of Jeju Island in South Korea. Gathering Moss presents ideas online, to provoke net-zero acts within the real world. We invite you to explore and be inspired to #ActZero: https://gatheringmoss.art
Art Center Nabi, Watershed and Bang & Lee co-hosted the Korea-British global cultural project Gathering Moss as an attempt to tackle climate issues. Bang and Lee say:
"Gathering Moss online platform grew from the recognition that we stand on a rocking bridge between older and future generations and we need to act now. The effects of climate change are devastating many communities around the world including those on Jeju Island, yet we cannot slow the rocking alone. ActZero extends out from Gathering Moss and our acts with Jeju are just the beginning. A million acts will become a collective action and we urge others to take part and ActZero. We are excited to launch this provocation and honoured to be a part of this work, together with young artists, Art Center Nabi and Watershed."
More about the Creative Camp
During Autumn 2021 in the run up to COP26, Art Centre Nabi in South Korea and Watershed in the UK hosted a 5-day digital/physical Creative Camp that supported early career artists to engage in climate action. Working across two global locations, camp activities ran part-simultaneously and part-mirrored, connecting ideas across unsynchronised time zones.
Two Korean teams, Sooah Kwak & Chanu Lee and Water Dweller (Syemin Park & Seunghee Choi), and three UK artists Heather Gibson, Inez Solomon-Gardner and Tom Forsey were selected to participate in a series of activities, including inspirational sessions with invited speakers which are free to view here, workshops, ideas sharing and development.
The participants created five brand new experimental works, on themes such as microplastics, responsibilities, global heating, distraction and love. Their works, created in an incredibly short space of time, share the perspectives of their generation on climate change at this critical crossroads for humanity. Their artworks are free to view on Gathering Moss and you can hear interviews with the artists here:
More about ActZero
ActZero is a concept formed by South Korean artists Bang & Lee, that challenges citizens worldwide, to act together with them to achieve net-zero in their daily lives.
Alongside the Gathering Moss Creative Camp, Bang & Lee undertook a series of creative net-zero acts on Jeju Island in South Korea entitled ActZero Noji, which focussed on sustainable materials, renewable energy, local biodiversity, and ultimately a return to nature. ActZero Noji was the first act of ActZero and extends an open invitation to others to get involved in climate action in the online and offline world. You can see documentation of the work here.
Gathering Moss is funded by The British Council and The Korea Foundation (KF), who in early 2021 jointly invited applications for a creative commission that integrated art, science and digital technology and responded to climate change. This commission was a part of the cultural programme for P4G Seoul Summit held in Seoul in May 2021 and the United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) which took place in Glasgow in November 2021.
Watershed worked in collaboration with Bristol+Bath Creative R+D and The Studio at Palace Yard Mews to deliver the UK side of the Creative Camp programme.
