What's Next For Earth

Re:Peat is a recent EDUFI Fulbright Finland Fellowship research project focusing on peatland extraction and restoration in Finland. Our hyperspectral images were made with a Specim FX-17 camera using wavelengths of 900 – 1700 nanometers. These images allow us to see details in soil structure invisible to the naked eye. We hear two sonified core samples, the unrestored sample panned left and restored panned right, moving low to high. Ash, an industrial byproduct from burning peat for power and heat at Toppila station in Oulu, has been used to treat the soil, de-acidifying it and perhaps leading to a viable novel ecosystem for reindeer forage.

I'm interested in the idea of system and ecosystem as fabric: "To me that’s systems thinking. It’s thinking about how one action here affects the whole. This means untangling some of the threads that tie various systems to one another, and what pulling on one part of the fabric might mean for the rest of it."

I'm also exploring this idea in terms of the idea of "novel" or post-human ecosystems that have been changed so much that there is no possibility of returning to a historical precedent. So how do we get to know and live with these new places? "In other words, these communities needed to change a part of their identity (while hopefully retaining their most valued qualities) and undergo a transformation to a new state that could be resilient under the new conditions."