The climate and ecological emergencies are the giant of our times. We know that many people are making changes, these need to be celebrated and shared to give us all hope and new ideas. That’s where the Mossy Carpet comes in!

So far this Crowdfunder has raised £30,000 to:

• involve tens of thousands of people in creative conversations about climate and ecological action, while making The Mossy Carpet at events in Plymouth, Dartmoor and beyond.
• make an awe-inspiring artwork that will be displayed in all sorts of prestigious places to show how working together can be magnificent. 
• highlight how tiny mosses, from the pavement by your door to the high moorlands, are incredibly important. They bury carbon and support all of life.  
• celebrate all the ways that people everywhere are taking steps to respond to the climate emergency, protect and restore nature, support their communities and live better.

With our stretch target of £55,000 we will:

• Run a Mossy Poetry Slam in autumn 2024 - an online event inviting wordsmiths from around the world.
• Take the Mossy Carpet to the RHS Hampton Court Garden Festival in July 2024. Over the week we will reach thousands more people, asking them to propagate the #BeMoreMoss message.

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Who are Art and Energy?

The Art and Energy Collective is an award-winning group of artists who use our skills to respond to the climate emergency. Founded in 2018, we are experts in designing enjoyable participatory artworks that help people connect with nature, inspiring them to take small creative steps to a better world.

Our collective is knowledgeable and passionate about nature, our energy systems, materials, communities and their wellbeing. We have designed a unique approach to supporting people to make changes for a better world and have made artworks that explore renewable energy, eco-anxiety, utopia, bio-diversity, green travel and what home means.
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REWARD: Mossy Carpet Team Building Day.
Book two members of The Art and Energy Collective for a creative team building workshop to explore mosses, get creative, understand and tackle eco-anxiety and learn about our pioneering approach to creative engagement.   

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What is The Mossy Carpet?  

The Mossy Carpet is an artwork inspired by moss and made by many people! Thousands of individually made pom-poms and textile tufts adorn fleecy felt from Dartmoor, creating a beautiful mossy carpet. Inspired by moss, each pompom represents someone’s small attempt to make the world better for all of life.

Within the carpet are electronic threads and stuffed textile tardigrades that play recordings of people’s voices, so as you stroke the artwork, you hear about the things that other people are doing.

We hope this artwork will be inspiring, comforting, hopeful, fabulous and friendly, showing that together, we can make something magnificent. 

To date, over 5000 people have helped to make 12 metres of The Mossy Carpet. We hope to get tens of thousands more people involved, sharing what they do, learning what works, making connections, replicating the best ways forward.  We are heading for more than 50 metres of carpet by next July. 

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REWARDS: Workshops & talks allowing people to get involved
You can fund online and in person workshops and talks for schools and community groups in Plymouth and beyond. We will share pictures and blog articles on social media with thanks to you.

SPONSORSHIP: Festivals & events
We are hoping to take the Mossy Carpet to Festivals and events with lots of people in the summer. We have a range of sponsorship packages for companies that share our values - get in touch at [email protected] if you would like more details.

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A celebration of action for a better world 

The Mossy Carpet celebrates everything people are doing for a better world.  

You’ve seen celebrities walk along ‘The Red Carpet’? Nominate someone who has inspired you with their nature positive action to take ‘a Walk of Fame’ on The Mossy Carpet at a unique and very special event in Plymouth in Summer 2024. 

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REWARD: VIP Walk of Fame on the Mossy Carpet 
Receive a beautiful invitation, plus a digital photo of you taking a walk along the mossy carpet at our celebratory event in Plymouth in summer 2024.

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Where the idea came from

Our last mass-participation artwork, Moths to a Flame, which started in Plymouth, involved over 58,000 people in making an artwork. It was displayed at the Botanic Gardens in Glasgow for COP26 in 2021. That artwork ‘spoke to power’ sending leaders and decision makers messages of hope. We decided our next project needed to speak to the power within us all. 

It was at Glasgow Botanic Gardens that we first began thinking about mosses. Since then we have worked with partners to develop and test our ideas. The Art and Energy Collective’s programme of work ‘How to Bury the Giant’ encourages us all to get creative and take nature positive action. It is about being inspired by mosses which, although small, have already changed the world for the better and help us confront the giant dilemmas of climate change and ecological disaster.

We found that mosses tell an ancient story of tiny lives, nurturing new life and simple actions. They help people to both imagine a better future, and find a way to journey towards it. 

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REWARD: Signed Moths to a Flame book
You will receive a Moths to a Flame book - We only have 12 left so don't miss out! Yours will be extra special as it will be signed by the Art and Energy artists.

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What will we use the funding for? 

£30,000 will allow us to deliver creative workshops and activities at schools, community get-togethers and festivals in Plymouth, Dartmoor and beyond. 

We will bring together experts, ecologists, academics, activists, creatives and communities in interactive online broadcasts and at in-person events. Together we will explore magnificent mosses and get involved in restoration activities on the moor. We will gather the materials to make 50 meters of The Mossy Carpet and organise a celebration event at an iconic site in Plymouth in Summer 2024. 

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Stretch targets! 

Every penny that we raise will help us include more people in creative fun and conversations about climate and ecological action. 

Additional funds will also allow us to pay for extra people to help us deliver the project and continue our creative activities past July 2024 and into the future, including reaching people beyond the South West of England.  

Our plan is to grow the project until COP30 (The UN Conference on Climate Change) in November 2025, when we would like to display the carpet somewhere awesome. We recognize that this is very ambitious for a Crowdfunder, but we have our fingers crossed. 

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Donations and Rewards 

We hope that you will be inspired to make a donation.  Even a small donations will make a big difference.   

With Aviva Wild-Isles any donation up to £250 will be tripled! So for the price of a cup of coffee the project would receive a tenner. 

In addition, if we raise a quarter of our target (£7.5k) then we may be offered match funding from Plymouth City Council’s Development Fund, reaching even more people!

We have some lush rewards that we hope will tickle your fancy, and make it possible for more people to get involved. 

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Mosses are amazing!

At the dawn of time, moss was the first plant to venture out of the sea and onto the barren land. 

Over millions of years, mosses trapped energy and buried carbon deep beneath the surface, transforming our planet into a place where life could thrive. 

Moss grows in the cracks, at the edges and in the shadows. Look closely and you will discover a truly wild place on your doorstep.

Each tiny moss reveals skills for successful living. Persistence, resilience, simplicity, adaptability. From moss we gain hope as they return carbon to the earth. 

There is so much to learn from nature. Though small, moss tells us that tiny actions can make a big difference. When we work together, we can bring abundance back to abandoned places. 

Mosses are amazing and often un-noticed, yet they:

• Sequester carbon (worldwide, peatlands store 2x carbon of forests).
• Slow the flow, reducing flooding.
• Create biodiverse environments for all of life to thrive.

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REWARD: A Mossellany of Questions for Life 
Receive a signed copy of our new book Be More Moss. A set of amazing facts about moss, accompanied by photographs and artworks. Each page includes questions and prompts to help you to Be More Moss.

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REWARD: Mossy Outings
Come along to a mossy walk or a family event on Dartmoor. You will find out loads about mosses and get to join in various restoration activities.

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What’s with the tardigrade?

Sometimes called a moss piglet, or a water bear, these microscopic creatures live in mosses. They are one of the most resilient on the planet, they can even be found in space. 

We know that people are all different, and things inspire them in a wide range of ways.  Some people really love tardigrades and the technical side of this artwork. We are asking people to tell the tardigrade about the tiny actions that make a difference. The audio will be incorporated into the carpet, sharing encouragement and ideas as we face the climate and ecological emergency. 

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REWARD: Handmade Tardigrade Sculpture 
You will receive a medium hand-made stuffed tardigrade sculpture made with upcycled fabric, or you could choose a large hand-made stuffed tardigrade sculpture made with eco-canvas printed with an image of The Mossy Carpet. Each Tardigrade will come with a signed certificate of authenticity.

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REWARD: Tardigrade Sewing Pattern
Get a digital download of our Tardigrade sewing pattern with access to a short video showing you how to make your own! 

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The under-felt of the Mossy Carpet.  

The base of our carpet is made from Dartmoor woolly fleeces, that would otherwise have been burned or buried. It’s been felted onto a hessian core to keep it strong. 

This innovative new material is also being used on Dartmoor to protect the roots of new saplings, to cover exposed piece of peat to keep it wet and to slow the flow of water off the moor to prevent flooding downstream. 

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How does this project help the environment?

You may think ‘but it’s just Art, that can’t really help our planet’... 

Seeing and valuing mosses, touching, really taking notice of them opens up new ways and ideas to do more for nature and the eco-systems that we are all part of.  It encourages actions.  The Mossy Carpet will be celebrating existing activity and welcoming new. 

The Moorland landscapes need regenerating, only a small proportion are in a good state - Climate change, drainage, grazing regimes and visitors have all played their part in this decline over recent years.  There are wide open spaces on Dartmoor being slowly restored with people working diggers and other machinery, but there are many small areas which need a helping hand at moss and human scale.  The funded workshops and events will always contain an invitation to get active and help restore the moor in many creative ways, from planting moss, creating pools and dams, embroidering and stuffing fleecy bunds. 

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REWARD: Workshops & visits
A donation towards a workshop allows communities to get hands on with moss and make a mossy difference that supports wellbeing. 

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The team behind the carpet 

Hello I'm Chloe. I'm interested in how practicing the arts can give us the skills and experiences we need for a brighter future and help us develop an intrinsic motivation for change. I spend time thinking about how we become aware of the power systems we find ourselves in and how to shift our way of being to become more creative, kind and connected with nature.

I’m Cat.  I love working with communities, especially children.  Youngsters need to be given the opportunity to get close to nature so that they understand it better, and they love a creative and craft based project.  I’m really looking forward to making this happen.

I’m Jenny.  My passion is using the materials that we have already and turning them into interesting and informative artworks that help make people see the world differently.  I love a challenge - I've enjoyed the challenge of making tardigrades that record and speak the voices of those joining in with this project.

I’m Naomi.  I've spent most of my life inviting other people to connect with nature, and our life’s force, our natural energy systems.  Getting close, and being creative with mosses is such a pleasure. Anything we can do to encourage people to be more moss-like will lead to a healthier environment and communities with more resilience.  

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Get involved creatively!

Don’t forget, you can always get involved with this project creatively. You and your group could make a piece of the artwork and send it to us, or you could call the tardigrade and leave a message.

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REWARD: Online introduction
A member of the Art and Energy can join your group online to say hello and introduce the project. Alternatively, book an online chat with a team member to help you plan how your group could get involved - talk through all the resources and we can answer your questions. Numbers of online participants isn't limited.

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