Erica tetralix July 2024 © Juliet Klottrup
ACE Bogs exhibition online
This exhibition is the culmination of a two-year project led by Yorkshire Peat Partnership to help people in West and North Yorkshire get closer to the region’s peatlands – closer in the physical sense but also closer in understanding.
It’s only when people understand something that they come to care about it and want to see it restored or protected. The aim of ACE Bogs (Access, Citizen science and Engagement on Bogs) was to help people to understand what a precious resource they have right on their doorsteps.
Naseem's ACE Bogs sketchbook © Naseem Darbey
Bog breathing © Sarah Smout
Funghi August 2023 © Juliet Klottrup
While the science is fascinating and many people will connect directly to understanding what these data points might mean, it's as exciting sometimes just to consider your own relationship to a landscape and share what your personal experience of it might be.Engagement Officer
Working with and on Denton Reserve, at the southern end of Nidderdale National Landscape above Ilkley, the project recruited volunteers from community groups, colleges, local schools and naturalist societies to engage with their peatlands through citizen science. Through their monitoring activities, ACE Bogs volunteers played a vital role in assessing how restoration has been improving Denton Reserve’s peatlands. They also gained an understanding and sense of responsibility for these magnificent brooding landscapes.
Naseem’s ACE Bogs sketchbook July 2023 to February 2025 © Naseem Darbey
Sarah recording bog sounds © Lucy Lee
Vegetation recordings August 2023 © Juliet Klottrup
I think the moorland here has been overlooked. We've had it under our noses for centuries and it's felt like a kind of wasteland. But then you start getting under the surface of it and looking at how it can be restored, how it can flourish, and how exciting it can be. And all of a sudden, people want to be involved in that and engage in it.Director, Denton Reserve
Throughout the project, a series of artist-led workshops enabled volunteers to express their responses to peatlands through drawing and spoken word. Participants worked with Keighley-based visual artist, Naseem Darbey, and Skipton-based musician and poet, Sarah Smout, to reflect upon and respond to their experiences on peatlands. The entire project was documented on traditional photographic film by photographer, Juliet Klottrup.
What you see in this exhibition is the product of a collaboration between a community of people learning together, exploring and responding to a habitat in transition.
The physical exhibition is at Ilkley Manor House from 12th to 27th April, 2025. You can read about the artists and see some of the content following the links below. Each button will take you to the work of our brilliant ACE Bogs artists