A new art exhibition at the Museum of Dartmoor Life, Okehampton, features work about sphagnum moss by Lyn Cooke. The exhibition will be on display until October 11.

Lyn Cooke graduated from Plymouth University in 2008. Since then she has exhibited in Bath, Bristol, Oxford and Saarburg in Germany. Much of her work is site based – concerned with a particular locality and the personal stories associated with that place.

For Dartmoor Visions she has researched sphagnum moss – ubiquitous on the high moor, in damp valleys and beside many streams. Her studies of its structure reveal how it manages to absorb moisture, so successfully that it has been much valued as a dressing for cuts and wounds.

During the First World War teams of local people from many moorland communities gathered moss and carried it to collection centres – at Widecombe, Okehampton, Princetown and Tavistock – where is was dried and cleaned and packed into muslin bags to become as essential element in the kit carried by every foot soldier.

The art exhibition, entitled Dartmoor Visions, shows artwork by nine contemporary artists from Wayward Art Group.

The work, inspired by Dartmoor, is in a range of traditional and mixed media, photography and installation; the artists have responded to Dartmoor weather, environment, archaeology, history and contemporary life.

Wayward Art Group (www.waywardart.org) was started in 2005 by graduates from the University of Plymouth’s Fine Art course, based in Exeter.

Aware of the risk of isolation as they moved from university to their own creative practice across Devon and Somerset, Wayward was set up to maintain an informal network of artists for mutual support. The group provides opportunities for discussion about contemporary art, critiquing practice, and engagement with the public.

There will be a drop-in workshop offering the chance to draw sphagnum moss in the gallery on Saturday, September 15 from 10.30am-12.30pm.