Day: March 10, 2025

Community Walking Projects

First Friday Walk

1 November 2024 a Walking the Land artist collective monthly event. This Friday’s brief was by Janette Kerr and me, Tamsin Grainger and part of the Lines of Enquiry, a collective walking art project which will culminate in a group exhibition in 2025.

Look for somewhere to sit, stand or crouch on your own. Pause. Close your eyes and concentrate on listening.

Try to separate out all the sounds you can hear.

Using a piece of paper and pencil, crayon or pen, and with your eyes still closed, make marks on your paper that you think might represent the sounds you are hearing (don’t try to make a picture of, or draw, the thing making the noise!)

Spend as long as you like doing this. You might stop and do it several times during the walk.

If you are walking with others, you might try this together on one piece of paper.

Here are the What3Words locations for the 6 stops we made along part of the Edinburgh Cycle Path network, connecting in spirit with others who were walking along the Honeybourne Line (Gloucestershire) and elsewhere.

  1. ///Causes.Host.Home
  2. ///Perky.Fetch.Useful
  3. ///Notice.Case.Bugs
  4. ///Linked.Tides.Eager
  5. ///Bounty.Belong.Only
  6. ///Maker.Exit.Corn
  7. ///Friday.Notice.Retail
Damp earth causes stains
Tree hosts magpies and sparrows
Home is far away.
Wet bottoms as we drew the sounds around us with our eyes closed
Sometimes using two hands as the sound came from so many places. Photo Janette Kerr
Perky dog's tail wags
'Fetch' calls his human with joy
Useful happinness.
Part of the No Birds Land sound walk installation
Under the Bridge. Edinburgh cycle paths. Photo Janette Kerr
Notice how cold stone
Is, in case of chills and piles 
Bugs me every time.
Where the 5-ways meet on the Edinburgh Cycle Path
Log sitting linked to
Ruth, tides away from here, though
Eager to connect.
Not Log Letters but Log Drawings (of the soundscape) 
Pigeon poo bounty
Belongs here under the bridge 
Who to? Only coo!
Despite the metal mesh, the pigeons roost in the roof of the old railway tunnel where Janette draws
Maker mark on pipes
No exit for the sewage 
Rose and corn coloured.
Strange, but serious pipes on the hillside 
First Friday walking
Notice the noise of the drill 
Retail shop going up.
Final stop: drawing together, opposite each other at the end of the Leith Path near the Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop
Some of the drawings made during the First Friday Walk (November 2024 by Janette and Tamsin)

Notes

On the ‘Log sitting …’ haiku: ‘Ruth’ refers to Ruth Broadbent and our project Conversations from a Log