Category: Community Walking Projects

Community Walking Projects

Down Memory Lane

A Canterbury 4WCoP24 walk which took place on Saturday 7th September 2024 at 10-11.30am. We met at the Church and Parish Hall of St Paul’s without the Walls on Church Street Saint Paul’s, Canterbury CT1 1NH.

Down Memory Lane was an urban pilgrimage in Canterbury that remembered our childhood homes. I planned the walk using online maps from Edinburgh, where I currently live, and until I made the rekkie the day before, I had no knowledge of the area. We walked with each other around the city, allowing its street and building names plus images and found objects to stimulate memories of places where we had lived as children.

The route I planned took me back to the town of Sevenoaks in Kent, somewhere I couldn’t get away from quickly enough when I was aged 18, but which I had a certain longing to explore again in this way. The Canterbury walk passed and visited shops, lanes and monuments which allowed me to explore my geographical and emotional heritage – Marks and Spencer (in honour of my best friend, Clare Spencer who lived up the hill), Lime Kiln Road (because our dad built us a tree house in the garden lime tree), and Hollow Lane (for I spent the first 18 years of my life in Seal Hollow Road).

I invited the other people who walked with me to notice names and locations which prompted their own recollections, and they found themselves drawn back with some nostalgia, sharing stories with each other from those long-ago days.

The walk was devised in response to the 4th World Congress of Psychogeography on the theme of Heritage and Hiraeth:

Heritage (attributive): Characterized by or pertaining to the preservation or exploitation of local and national features of historical, cultural, or scenic interest, esp. as tourist attractions.
Hiraeth (Welsh English): deep longing for a person or thing which is absent or lost; yearning; nostalgia; spec. homesickness.
These are the O.E.D. definitions – what are yours?

4WCoP are here and it was a pleasure to share this walk with everyone involved.

The white horse of Kent
Heritage Court, Canterbury
Hops – they decorated our childhood kitchen
Some of the members of the walking group
Community Walking Projects

Sweat mapping

A guest post by Marie-Anne Lerjen, a walking artist from Zurich (Switzerland). Her website is in German.

We walked a good long walk (24 kms) from Girona to Banyoles in Cataluña, setting off in a considerable heat (27 degrees) and finishing after dark. Here is Marie-Anne’s Sweat Mapping blog

It’s a quick but good listen on Soundcloud:

Featuring myself and many other walking artists from around the world who had congregated at the Art del Caminar conference.

Community Walking Projects

Swift Moves

Live participatory Performance event by Tamsin Grainger and Natalie Taylor

The artwork of Natalie Taylor in front of Granton Station, Edinburgh

This event took place on Friday 31st May 5-6pm at the Granton Station Plaza – outside the front of the new Granton Station (formerly Granton Gasworks Station).

We explored the migratory patterns of birds and how it felt to walk alone and together in a ‘flock’ in a structured improvisation. No experience was necessary and everyone was welcome. It was accessible for wheelchair and mobility aid users.

Participants of Swift Moves, Granton Station, Edinburgh

This event was part of the Granton Gas Tower art commission design proposal, and took place on Waterfront Broadway, Granton , Edinburgh EH5 1FU W3W///groom.honest.apples (what 3 words)

Being swifts, Granton Station ,Edinburgh

Funded by the City of Edinburgh Council.

Community Walking Projects

May Day, a provocation

I’m happy to be part of Kel Portman’s May Day project, an assemblage of artists’ work made on 1 May 2024.

I made a ritual sea swim with women from Granton, Edinburgh then walked from Granton https://w3w.co/porch.asks.rocky to Portobello https://w3w.co/land.fuel.middle

Inspired by Kel’s prompts, I had researched the goddesses associated with this time of year and incorporated them in my words and images.

Mayday Walking
Though Floralia dawned turquoise and pink, the haar cloaked us in grey.
wearing wreaths of bluebell and campion, we swam in the lace-edged estuary,
Flora, goddess of flowers, Aphrodite,
subtle of soul and deathless, of dove and seashells,
And Àine, the radiant.
Convinced that the sea is a restless woman and she an ordinary person,
She circled from home seeking celandine and comfrey in the hedgerows,
Smell of coconutty gorse and scent of scorched air,
By Stedfastgate, through The Quilts, 
Collecting hearts as she went.
Love walked behind her, not quickly following,
Venus, didn’t catch her up.  
Kneeling by the water where the stones were stacked,
Nut, sky goddess of the four directions, poured libation,
Isis, her daughter, offered healing,
And Wingéd Ma’at stood for justice, incandescent.
Notes:
A haar is a sea fog
'subtle of soul and deathless' is taken from Sappo’s Ode to Aphrodite 
'a restless woman' comes from ‘Hagstone’ by Sinead Gleeson
Nut is an Egyptian sky goddess
Isis is Nut’s daughter, invoked in healing spells to benefit ordinary people

With thanks to Natalie Taylor @natalietaylorartist

With me, Suze Adams, Sabine Crittall, Jaqui Stearn, Amanda Couch, Kate Roberts, Therese Livonne and Kel Portman

Community Walking Projects

Knock on Wood

May 18th 2024 1.30-3.30 Gather at Pianodrome, Granton, Edinburgh. Book via Eventbrite

Listening to the tree types we will visit (from top left around down and across bottom right to left:

American Sycamore, Rowan (leaves, bark/trunk), Apple, Whitebeam, Hazel, Wych Elm, Wheatley Elm (whole tree), Willow, Hazel, Cherry, Alder, Wheatley Elm (leaf and bark), fir (unknown name), Himalayan Birch.

We will also see Whitebeam, Silver Birch, Oak, Scots Pine, Copper Sycamore (or is it Maple?), Beech, and the Pianodrome / Granton Apple Orchard.

Pauline Oliveros

We will be practising Deep Listening, as developed by Pauline Oliveros, which:

explores the difference between the involuntary nature of hearing and the conscious nature of listening. It cultivates a heightened awareness of the sonic environment, both external and internal, and promotes experimentation, improvisation, collaboration, playfulness, and other creative skills vital to personal and community growth.

https://www.deeplistening.rpi.edu/deep-listening/ 

See also the full Knock on Wood story here

Nearby:

The Wall sound walk also by Tamsin Grainger