Juneau Projects - BryophyteClub

Tiny Wilderness

The series of sculptures that were created in the Bryophyte Club workshops at the University of West England have been titled Tiny Wilderness.

The pieces are now installed and will be launched in November 2024 with an accompanying publication.

Tiny Wilderness is a series of bronze sculptures, brick clay moss seating and habitat created by UWE Bristol staff and students and the surrounding local community in collaboration with artists Juneau Projects.

The project explored the theme of ‘overlooked nature’ and looking more closely at the world around us. The resulting artworks are based on the forms of lichens and bryophytes (a group of plants that include mosses, liverworts and hornworts). These tiny, often overlooked plants first appeared 500 million years ago and grow on every continent of our planet. There are over a thousand species of bryophyte in the UK alone. Able to withstand extreme climates, they are one of the organisms most capable of adapting to climate change.

Thank you to the 315 people who joined the Bryophyte Club workshops to collaboratively design and make these artworks, including groups from Stoke Gifford Retirement Village, Lockleaze Neighbourhood Trust, Glenfrome Primary School, Art in Motion (AIM), Arnolfini and the staff and students aross UWE Bristol.

Bryophyte Club?

A bryophyte is a small, rootless plant such as moss. In the city these plants often grow in overlooked places. They are part of the building blocks of an ecosystem, offering food and shelter for insects and other invertebrates. Despite their small size, they can help filter pollution from the atmosphere and act as a carbon sink in peat bogs.

This project will take inspiration from these overlooked pockets of nature, looking at the forms and ecological role of mosses and other small plants. Staff and students of all UWE Bristol campuses and invited to take part as well as residents that live close to the Frenchay campus, where the artwork will be located.

We ran the first stage of workshops between October and February where participants created model sculptures to come up with ideas for the final piece. See the Project Archive for full details of these workshops. Using these designs we created a Design Proposal (see below) which was presented to UWE Bristol for approval.

We are now in the second stage of the project. We are running another round of workshops where participants can help create the full sized sculptures. See above for more details. These workshops will continue until May 2023. Following that the pieces will be cast in bronze at Castle Fine Art Foundry and the brick pieces will be fired at Ibstock Almondsbury before installation in the ground of the new student accommodation block on UWE Brtistol's Frenchay Campus.

Project Archive

See the project archive below to see how the sculptures were designed and created in a series of workshops.

Directorate Planning Meeting - 5 September 2022

After a period of research and discussion with Arnolfini's Projects Producer Alix Rothnie, we met with UWE Bristol's directorate team to outline our plans for the project. During the meeting the staff put together and painted mini sculpture kits that we had created. These were based on bryophyte (mosses & liverworts) and lichen forms - see images above.

We planned two phases of workshops. In the first set we'll focus on creating models of possible sculptures. Participants would work with materials such as clay and laser-cut wood to make a maquette for a sculpture they would like to see in the grounds of the new accommodation building at Frenchay Campus. This phase would take place between October and December 2022. These workshops would be for staff, students and the local community and will take place on each university campus as well as a number of community venues to allow for as much engagement and access as possible.

After these workshops we will create a design plan for the sculptures based on the maquettes created during our sessions and present it to the commissioners.

The second phase of workshops will take place from March 2023. These workshops will allow staff, students and the local community to help make the final pieces. They will be able to get hands-on making full size pieces to be cast in metal or carved in brick clay.

Zine and Bower Ashton Welcome Fair - 3 October 2022

We created a zine for the project with information about the workshops and how to get involved. This is being distributed at events at the university and in the community as well as via a display stand at the atrium reception in the Business Centre.

We ran a stall at the Bower Ashton campus welcome fair, distributing the zine and discussing the project with students. We also gave out Bryophyte Club badge kits for people to take away, construct and paint.

Exhibition - Arnolfini - 8 - 30 October 2022

Alongside the initial workshops for the project, we exhibited some maquettes from a project with the University of Birmingham that shares some themes with Bryophyte Club, to introduce our way of working. The ideas for the piece were developed alongside a series of workshops with students and the local community, the results of which were shown here. There was also information about the upcoming Bryophyte Club project and some recent publications.

Photos by Lisa Whiting

Workshop One - Grow Wilder - 27 October 2022

This was the first public workshop, where members of the local community could make a sculpture maquette. It took place at Grow Wilder, the Avon Wildlife Trust's community garden project located on Frenchay Park Road, BS16 1EL, a short distance from Frenchay campus.

Workshop Two - Staff Workshop at Frenchay Campus - 28 October 2022

This was the first UWE Bristol focused workshop. We invited staff to join us and create maquettes for the sculptures. As well as discussing ideas and themes for the project, we also continued the research process by meeting staff with biological expertise who study mosses in the context of wider ecosystems. We also made connections with staff from a number of departments who made suggestions for further workshops with their staff and students.

Workshop Three - Grow Wilder - 28 October 2022

Our second public workshop was also held at Grow Wilder.

Workshop Four - Project Launch, Frenchay Campus Community Garden - 2 November 2022

We held a launch event in the Frenchay campus community garden. It was an opportunity to introduce the project more widely on campus and we had great conversations with staff and students including the grounds team and the Living Well student group. We also had our materials on had for those who wanted to make a sculpture maquette. The event was held in conjunction with the SU Green Fortnight.

Workshop Five - Student Workshop at the SU, Frenchay Campus - 2 November 2022

Our first student workshop was held at the SU on Frenchay Campus. It included architecture MA students who are working on a project looking at developing gateways to the campus.

Workshop Six - Lockleaze Neighborhood Trust - 10 November 2022

We worked with people from the local community at the Community Hub.

Workshop Seven - Student Workshop at Bower Ashton - 10 November 2022

We worked with students from courses at Bower Ashton campus.

Workshop Eight - Architecture Staff at Frenchay - 16 November 2022

This workshop was held in the architecture department at Frenchay, adjacent to the site of the new student accommodation where the sculpture will be located.

Workshop Nine- Staff Workshop at Frenchay - 17 November 2022

A lunchtime workshop for UWE staff.

Workshop Ten- RBI Staff Workshop at Frenchay - 22 November 2022

A workshop with staff from the RBI department, many of whom work in offices overlooking the site where the sculpture will be located.

Workshop Eleven - Staff and Student Workshop at Arnolfini - 7 December 2022

A workshop with staff and students largely from creative courses based at the Arnolfini/city campus.

Workshop Twelve - Stoke Gifford Retirement Village - 13 December 2022

We worked with residents at the Stoke Gifford Retirement Village, which is located opposite the East Entrance of the Frenchay Campus, near where the sculptures will be located. The group were keen to visit Frenchay and take part in the sculpture fabrication stage of the project on site.

Sculpture Fabrication

Images from our design document showing the proposed sculpture and their sources from the workshops

In March 2023 we set up a Making Space, a studio in S Block on Frenchay Campus where we could work with groups to fabricate the sculptures. We were kindly lent a microscope from the Health and Applied Sciences department, which allowed people to view some moss and lichen specimens close up. We held a series of workshops where students, staff and the local community built the sculptures at full size from clay. The clay was then delivered to Castle Fine Art Foundry for casting in bronze.

In the second set of fabrication workshops participants worked with wet brick clay generously supplied by the nearby Ibstock Cattybrook brick factory. These bricks will be shaped in the workshops to create the sculptural seating and habitat wall.

Follow our project Instagram for workshops dates and project images

This is a joint project between UWE Bristol and Arnolfini