Community Group: Afro Art Lab

Researchers: Neil James, Ecologist (University of the Highlands and Islands) and John Hedger Mycologist (Independent and Professor Emeritus at the University of Westminster)

Location: Scoraig Peninsula, Wester Ross

A citizen science project exploring and mapping the biodiversity of the Scoraig peninsula

Ewan Bush, Community lead at Afro Art Lab, said:

It has been a great learning experience for us all, sharing knowledge and learning from other members of our community including our scientists. We are now considering how to take the project to the next stage.

About the project

Afro Art Lab is an artist-run space based in the coastal crofting community at the Scoraig Peninsula in Wester Ross, Scotland. Living off-grid, with access to the main road by boat being dependent on the wind and the tide, the community shares a close connection with the natural world, and is acutely aware of its effects on their daily lives. Scoraig has a small (80 or so residents) but diverse community with members from various backgrounds. The aim of the project was to explore and map the biodiversity of the peninsula while considering the effects of climate change and what can be done to mitigate them.

Community-researcher partnership

Afro Art Lab partnered with ecologist Neil James from the University of the Highlands and Islands, and mycologist John Hedger, Professor Emeritus at the University of Westminster. The research combined a technical/science approach with an arts and culture approach, focusing on biodiversity to begin conversations about the climate emergency, in recognition that there were many different views and beliefs within the community about the causes of climate change.

Local people were a direct part of the project and contributed in their own way and at their own pace. For example, Afro Art Lab first combined their fieldwork with a WhatsApp group for accessible data gathering which they then transformed into a google form for ease of ongoing monitoring and analysis.

Alongside this they ran participatory community events involving arts and creative activities. They also engaged with the local primary school and held a number of activities for children and families, including an easter themed workshop colouring eggs with natural materials to highlight biodiversity motifs.

Research impacts

This community and researcher collaboration allowed members of the local community to receive training on creative and digital methods for biodiversity mapping. The citizen science project resulted in the discovery of a rare fungus, Gliophorus reginae, that had never been sighted in Scotland previously (awaiting publication in the British Wildlife Magazine).

Afro Art Lab believe their project’s success was due to the groundwork with the local community and the gentle, encouraging, and creative approach that was taken; community engagement events helped raise awareness, generate enthusiasm for the topic locally, and bring different members of the community together in general.

They are now further supporting the community by establishing ‘what3words’ quadrants across the peninsula, a geo-code system that can identify any location across the world within 3 metres, enabling biodiversity to be monitored by the community in the long term.