Paludicultures

How might we (re)learn ways of living well in re-wetted landscapes, develop appropriate technologies of making with local resources, and speculate on entangled emergent futures in watery worlds?

A collaboration between Charlett Wenig, an interdisciplinary material researcher, and Lucy Norris, a social anthropologist working in the field of design, this project looks at the potential of peatland resources (especially reed canary grass Phalaris arundinacea, and water sedge Carex aquatilis) as materials in the proposed wetlands of northern and eastern Germany.

Re-wetting peatlands is a strategy that significantly reduces global greenhouse gas emissions, and has thus become an urgent priority and inter-disciplinary research area. Aiming to reverse-engineer centuries of socio-technological developments designed to drain swamps, bogs and fens around the world, environmental scientists are now designing methodologies to re-wet landscapes once more, to sequester carbon, increase biodiversity and support the (re)introduction of peatland ecologies. Key to regenerating wetlands on such a scale is finding ways of enabling them to remain economically productive - paludiculture is the growing, nurturing and sustainable harvesting of species of trees, grasses, mosses, berries and animals that flourish in these liquid landscapes.

Design research and materials science are at the heart of realising the potential of these new and restored material ecologies as resources for living well within these new landscapes, experimenting with local biomaterials and ways of processing them, from adapting heritage craft skills to integrating digital technologies. A material-driven design approach explores the active material properties of these grasses as whole plants and develops ways of using them to their full potential for as long as possible. The fibrous properties of grasses can be manipulated through techniques such as coiled basketry into new architectural textile assemblages, creating abstract objects that open up spaces of the imagination and encouraging dialogue between diverse actors.