Ruth and I first met in March 2023 on a First Friday Walk, after we had been working together at a distance for many months. We had been sitting on logs in our own locations, writing letters to each other about the nature of collaboration, and other matters. Then we photographed the logs and letters and messaged them to each other via WhatsApp. This was during one of the Covid 19 lockdowns in 2022.
Later, when restrictions lifted, we walked and made maps and sound work together while on residency in Ilkley Moor, Yorkshire in March 2023. Finally, the work was exhibited at Convergence|Divergence in April 2023 in Pitchcombe in the Cotswolds, England.
A letter from a log – Tamsin Grainger to Ruth Broadbent. October 2022Log #1 Inverleith Park, EdinburghI didn’t have any fabric with me so I stitched the map of one of our walks on the back of my T-shirtRuth Broadbent and Tamsin Grainger on a First Friday Walk, Cotswolds, England 2023It was cold and wet walking on the stunning Ilkley Moor, Yorkshire, England 2023Stone mapping: cup and ring marks on ancient rock, Ilkley Moor, Yorkshire, England Woven Words from Log Letters at Convergence|Divergence exhibitionLog Letters on a till roll exhibited at Convergence|Divergence April 2023Stitched and overlaid maps of walks taken on Ilkley Moor, Yorkshire. March 2023
Deep Encounters is a Walking the Land project conceived of by Janette Kerr, and includes me, Zoe Ashbrook, Ruth Broadbent, Alison Berrett, Sara Dudman, Ffin(V C Price), Richard Keating, Melinda Hunt, Rachel McDonnell, Amanda Steer, Sally Stenton and Molly Wagner.
Deep Encounters is a multifaceted mapping of a small piece of land involving artists working in different areas/locations. At its centre is the perception of a space in a much more intricate way than normal.
Janette Kerr
There is a patch of woodland in the municipal park near my house where I walk regularly. It is in the middle of a residential area, overlooked by many tenement flats, and the trees in it have a view of the sea. To one side there is a newer coppice with smaller trees planted by the community.
Dark Wood – surrounded by park grass, Wheatley Elm, tenements, and cars parked to the left. There are newer residential units that replaced the fisher families cottages to the right. 7am January 2026
Surrounded by grass and a playpark, the woods are well-used, but not always respected, with a great deal of rubbish ending up there. There have been burnings, graffiti and other damage done. There is a great variety of trees and other undergrowth. Birds inhabit it and animals visit.
Although I have spent some time at Granton Crescent Park in the past, my aim is to continue to show it some appreciation – after all, it is the closest I get to countryside here in the city. Paying attention to somewhere changes me and it may even be that I change it, although I would not seek to interfere. I will get to know the place further – listening, watching, touching, smelling and even tasting. The landscape and I will be in a more continuous relationship, and who knows what will arise. It will be interesting to see what artwork comes through as the seasons turn and we get used to each other.
Place work… From knowing-about to becoming-with
Rae Wilcox @greengreenteas
February update
New mapping in progress: of animal and human desire lines before the Spring growth changes the patterns. Walking and walking, counting my paces, measuring and learning the land.
Various photos taken in the process of mapping. Deep EncountersDrawings of the desire lines which cross cross the copse for Deep Encounters
March Update
Standing still for long time meant that I wasn’t detected until the last minute
I will be adding to this blog on a regular basis as the project progresses.
I walked a patch of land to the side of the new Spiers Bruce Way, opposite the Granton Castle Walled Garden in Edinburgh and imagined who had walked there before me, human and other-than-human.
Walking the Taskscape* on the first Friday of June 2026 ///image.flames.voted
I walk these grounds belonging to Granton Castle in 1160. As Head Gardener, I nurture the soil to provide vegetables, fruit, and herbs for my master’s table. King William the Lion is on the throne.
I proudly walk this land surrounding Grantoun House in 1479, a member of the Melville Family of Fife. I survey my many turrets and admire my grand old trees, rooted deep in the earth to shelter us from the gales coming off the Firth of Forth.
I walk this property in 1684. Appointed gamekeeper, my task is to tend the deer and fowl, providing cover for the breeding animals, and open land for my lord’s sport.
I walk across these pastures in 1834, estates which belong to Walter Francis Montagu Douglas Scott, the 5th Duke of Buccleuch. His cattle thrive on the rich grass.
I walk this place in 1905, Controller of Granton Gas Works. Coal arrives from the Niddrie fields on the other side of the city, and is heated in oxygen-free furnaces to produce combustible gas. Inside the tall, round cylinders and metal frames you can see from Princes Street, the gas levels rise and fall, providing for the industries and homes of the city.
I walk on hard, pale-brown Craigleith stone in 1920, speculating for the new quarry. Bain’s my name, and this Castle has been in ruins for years. The Corporation may have said the heritage should be preserved, but if they did, I did not get the message.
I walk along the ridge in 1952. I’m Robert Mushet and it was my father who discovered the black iron which I now smelt in the furnaces of the Steel Foundry in front of me, the most modern factory of its kind in Britain today.
I walk here in the year 2000, between rubble and stalk, stumbling over mounds of contaminated soil. This is not wasted land; it waits for fox and badger to bring barbs of Herb Bennett on its fur and for the wind to spread Fireweed seeds; starting the process of renewal.
I walk this plot in 2026, cut-off wires sticking out of the soil, debris and black plastic all around. The lone fawn over by the wall picks her way over devastated soil; recent destruction of the woods no longer offers shelter. The homeless people who lived in the Social Bite Village have been moved on, making way for blocks of flats to address the ‘declared housing emergency’.
Illustration for Walking the Taskscape by Tamsin Grainger
This was in response to a prompt for the Walking the Land June 2026 First Friday Walk provided by Caroline Morris (@curioverse on instagram)
* Taskscape is an anthropological concept introduced by social anthropologist Tim Ingold. It describes the temporally unfolding field of human and non-human activities that occur within a landscape.
Guidelines for the February 2026 First Friday Walk (FFW) Please note that this is a distal prompt, but you can, of course, arrange to walk in a couple or a group wherever you are.
Choose a place to walk and make work. Find out the W3W/// location for your starting place (you will probably have a few options, so choose the one you like best or are most attracted to.)* Store those 3 words in your mind / notebook / phone. Set your timer and start walking. Stop after 15 minutes. Choose one of the 3 words and use it to make an intervention (it can be a photo(s), conversation, drawing, rubbing, poem, thought, installation … whatever you like). After long enough, walk for a further 15 minutes. Choose a second word and make an intervention as before (or differently).
Repeat a third time.
Either in the open air or back at home, compose your work in whatever way makes sense.
Share with someone or on social media #walkingtheland #firstfridaywalk The title (or subtitle of your work) will be the W3W/// and something of your choice.
What you will need
The W3W/// app or a text of some sort (poem, newspaper article etc)* Materials of your choice for making A timer, watch, or phone
Extra notes
*If you do not already have the W3W/// app on your phone, you can download it before you leave, from the Playstore or Applestore, look it up on the internet or on a laptop. If the whole W3W/// thing is too technology-focused for you, choose the 15th, 30th and 45th words from a text of your choice.
If you want to stay out longer, repeat with a second W3W/// address.
If you are part of another Walking the Land project, you could choose your Deep Encounters place to do this FFW, or walk at a distance with your Walking in Pairs partner (perhaps you decide in advance to swap W3W addresses, or use a mix of them).
A film made during and in response to the January 2026 First Friday Walk, prompted by Lucy Guenot.
She wrote, “Let’s think about the walks and the paths and tracks that are most familiar to us: the comfort of taking a well-known route where you don’t need to think about directions or following a map.”
“Reflect also on the history of old tracks, made by centuries of walking:
"These are old paths, designed
And kept alive by feet
For whom walking was
The only way of going.
These are the treads of workers,
Plodding early with their bait
To quarries, mills, farms …"
From 'Wotton Walks’ by U A Fanthorpe."
I was booked on the train from London to Edinburgh on January 2nd, so I could not walk. Instead, I filmed the countryside, cities, and full moon through the window as we rushed past. To make the work, I slowed the footage down and juxtaposed it with the sound of me walking a familiar walk between my home and the nearby beach.
On the train, I didn’t need to think about directions or following a map, I was simply carried along. This was a ‘comfort’ of sorts, though walking is better for my hips than sitting down for long periods. I had time to think that the train tracks between Scotland and England were laid down over the same earth that drovers walked on from the Highlands to the Lowlands in the 18th and 19th centuries. These epic walks were with dogs, sheep, and ‘hardy black cattle’.
By contrast, I walked on striped LNER carpets, bumping into the seats on my way to the buffet, loo, or the end of the carriage to stretch. Standing looking out, I remembered the old school trains which had windows which opened. I used to lean out as far as I could and feel the fast air on my cheeks.
