WETBEINGS: Peatland Organisms, Stories and Troubles

On April 26, 2025, the online event TRANS-LOCAL WET CULTURES AND BOG KNOWLEDGE inaugurated the transdisciplinary project WETBEINGS: Peatland Organisms, Stories and Troubles. This Spring Online meeting brought together researchers, artists, and activists to explore the ecological and cultural significance of peatlands. WETBEINGS focuses on Aukštumala, a bog in western Lithuania known as one of the oldest scientifically studied peatlands in the world. From 31 May to 2 June a Field Symposium will take place in Aukštumala accomanied by the project’s Bog Radio format.

WETBEINGS offered a multilingual program in English and Lithuanian. The event drew from science, art, Indigenous knowledge, and activism to reconnect people with the histories and futures of wetlands. Quoting writer Robin Wall Kimmerer, the event created a meeting place for “old stories and new ones that can be medicine for our broken relationship with Earth”. 

Located in the Nemunas River delta, Aukštumala is a 9,000-year-old living archive and one of the largest peat extraction sites in the Baltic region. WETBEINGS highlighted both the biodiversity of the peatland and the ongoing threats it faces, aiming to build reciprocity and sustainable coexistence between humans and these threatened ecosystems. 

Speakers and contributors included peatland guardians, artist and researchers Banguolė Žalnieriūnaitė, RE-PEAT, Jeanna Kolesova, Fernanda Olivares (The Venice Agreement),  and the organisers Suza Husse (Sensing Peat at The Michael Succow Foundation), Jūratė Sendžikaitė (Foundation for Peatland Conservation and Restoration) and Andreas Haberl (Michael Succow Foundation) —alongside non-human presences like the European Pond Turtle, Eurasian Bittern, Marsh Labrador Tea, and the Grass Snake. 

The event was organized by the arts and research platform Sensing Peat (Michael Succow Foundation, Germany) and the Foundation for Peatland Conservation and Restoration (Lithuania), in cooperation with the Allianz Foundation. It was co-hosted RE-PEAT and The Venice Agreement for Peatlands and supported by the Andrea von Braun Foundation, 

A recording of the event is available here WETBEINGS: Online Meetings 

More information about the project: WETBEINGS 

Next up: WETBEINGS - Aukštumala Science, Arts and Story Field Symposium, May 31 to June 2, 2025. More info and registration here: WETBEINGS: Aukštumala Arts, Science & Story Field Symposium 

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Peat mining fields, archeological site in ancestral birch forest, Aukštumala, WETBEINGS research trip, April 2025. Photos: Suza Husse Peat mining fields, archeological site in ancestral birch forest, Aukštumala, WETBEINGS research trip, April 2025. Photos: Suza Husse