Cetraria Islandica is an ongoing study of time and spatial relations between Iceland and Scotland, centered on the plant specimen Icelandic moss and the geological diversity across both land's age span. The study combines 8mm film footage and 35mm photographs of moss and lichen filmed in Iceland in October 2021, alongside an experimental dyeing and writing practice that explores Icelandic moss (cetraria islandica) as a site of multitemporal and multispecies convergence.

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Icelandic moss is a lichen which grows in both the highlands of Iceland and the north of Scotland. It has been used as a dye and medicinally in both historic Icelandic and Scottish communities, and as such it intersects with different societal narratives of migration, sense of place, female traditional knowledges, temporality and eco-critical concerns. During a 2021 residency near Reykjavik, I learned about the reverence observed for such lichens. A reverence which implicates humans in hesitance to traverse the lava flow landscapes on which Cetraria Islandica grows. 

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Filming the lichen carefully and avoiding the interference of human touch is a consciously embodied practice, involving finding a path bridged by rocks, jumping from one to another, without falling. Walking amongst but not on the moss, walking around but not on the delicate lava forms, transforms the movement of the upright walking body. Filming the lava fields requires uncomfortable positions, low to the ground without touching the mosses and lichens.

 

To traverse the landscape becomes a complex choreography, combining a deferral to the lichen cover and volcanic formations for the most appropriate route and a practice of embodying reverence for more-than-human landscapes.