Like a bog, RE-PEAT’s identity can only be understood through time-formed layers. We are shaped by our past, present and future.
OUR STORY
It took just one boggy story, one scientific core of the peat earth, and a few print-out graphs floating in the wind, and the seed of RE-PEAT was planted. Now, four years of watering and weeding later, the seed has grown into a luscious ecosystem.
Like a bog, RE-PEAT’s identity can only be understood through time-formed layers. We are shaped by our past, present and future. Our historical evolution, our current connections and resources, and our dreams for the future. Most of all, we are shaped by our collective nature: a heap of people pulled together by peat who learn from the way that peat has pulled together countless others over deep time.
Our basic unit is relation - a mutualism where we all contribute and benefit. Like an ecosystem, we depend on diversity. Everyone has something different to contribute and all of it has value. We see strength in our intersections of art and science, in the meetings of the curiosity and power of youth with the wisdom of older generations. Just like peatland are dotted across the world map, RE-PEATers are everywhere. We take our differences as fuel for transformation. Our “mistakes” as portals for learning. We cherish the process as much as the outcome, nurturing our relations for the future.
We understand that systems of oppression have historically determined whose voices are heard and valued, and continue to do so. We do not wish to reproduce these patterns, and we try to resist them through fair structures and processes as well as individual inner work. At the same time, we recognise that this will be lifelong work and that we all carry internalised oppressions with us. Through forgiveness and accountability, we both act in the present and learn for the future.
We want you to know all this because our vision, values and theory of change have evolved - and will continue to evolve - directly from these relationships, experiences and beliefs. But the beating heart of it all is the wet peatlands themselves. Because RE-PEAT is itself a living testament of the impact of creating new narratives in collaboration with peatlands. The direction of our work and the five strands of our process all flow from the simple, profound desire to share this with you.
