A peatland is never just a landscape. It is layered—scarred and sacred, soft and industrial, alive and exhausted. Some parts are still cut by machines, while others are slowly returning to water and moss. In this place of contradictions, we begin by paying attention. Walking without rush, letting light, movement, and sound guide us. Perception grows from presence. Some may take pictures, others may simply watch with the naked eye. What draws our gaze? What holds it? What slips by unnoticed? 

This place has long been seen in particular ways. Once mapped and measured by peat mining enterprises, carved by machines and drones, reduced to grids and resource zones. Later reframed through the eyes of tourists or animal/bird photographers—picturesque, distant, emptied of history. What is brought into focus in these views? What is pushed to the background? 

With tools like magnifying lenses, microscopes, or simply our fingertips, we approach what is usually overlooked—traces, textures, details. This workshop is about how we look, and what our looking reveals or conceals. About how seeing a place differently can help us feel it differently, too.

Leanne Betasamosake Simpson