Juliet & Jamie Gutch

enclasp: to hold tightly’

Robin Wall Kimmerer’s book ‘Gathering Moss’ explores the contribution that sphagnum moss makes to maintaining environmental equilibrium. The extraordinary ability of sphagnum to hold water means that plant material is prevented from fully decomposing, and over thousands of years peat soil is formed by the partially decayed material. An estimated 3.2 billion tons of carbon is ‘locked in’ by UK peatlands alone. Juliet and Jamie searched for sphagnum moss on Ilkley Moor and have used the forms of the tiny leaves as the basis for shapes at the centre of each mobile. They have tried to express the sense of the plant holding an element, carbon, by shaping the wood around another natural material, a stone. Each mobile wraps around the stone at the centre of its balance, and the balance of the whole sculpture arises from that gesture.