Each year, as part of a regular residency & field trip I help curate, I take a group of artists to listen collectively to the thin, popping squeaks of moss. It’s an experience that as a group feels energising, grounding and often surprising. The sound moss creates is delicate and gentle yet at the same time like a hard crunching pocket of moisture beneath your feet. 

 

You can hear the wet soft sound of water filtering through their many rhizoids and back into moss covered rocks and tree roots. In some areas it sounds like a constant grainy crackle and at other times a momentary caressing of plant and texture.

 

As we all listen together we look at each other with amazement as we realise how little of this micro-world we can hear and understand.
We carefully place our microphones in different places and slowly let the moss guide
our listening.