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Walking and making work en-plein-air is integral to my process of making observations; recording and collecting images is a kind of slow filming: walking - thinking - drawing - erasing - overdrawing - pausing - time slipping - remembering - silence - space 19th century Romantic writers saw walking and traveling as essential to experiencing nature: “there is hardly anything that shows the shortsightedness or capriciousness of the imagination more than traveling does. With change of place we change our ideas; nay, our opinions and feeling…. writes William Hazlitt. For Hazlitt moving one’s body also moves one’s thinking, and both end up in new and unknown destinations: “We measure the universe by ourselves, and even comprehend the texture of our being only piece-meal. In this way, however, we remember an infinity of things and places”. Walking holds out possibilities for convergence of head, heart, and limbs, making for an awakened instant – or “spots of time” as Wordsworth referred to such moments - where we glimpse, and perhaps participate in, a communion with ‘something other’. For Henry David Thoreau walking brings us to the edge where mind and nature meet, allowing transcending of boundaries. Out there, Thoreau suggests, we can experience the new, even if such knowing means only to touch at nature's vast strangeness. Best wishes to all walkers Janette _______________________________________________________________ Dr Janette Kerr PRWA FRSA Hon RSA Hon RA ex officio President of the Royal West of England Academy Visiting Research Fellow, CMIR UWE Bristol http://extremewavetheory.blogspot.com http://www.cadogancontemporary.com/artists/KERJ/ http://land2.leeds.ac.uk/people/kerr/ http://www.rwa.org.uk/rwa-artists/academicians-listings/k/kerr-janette/ http://www.veernorth.org.uk/members/detail.asp?newsid=430 On 23 January 2016 at 14:56, Rachel Gomme <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > In a random response to many posts… > > Deliberate deceleration can indeed be challenging: in 2005 I participated > in Christine Quoiraud’s project ’02-12 Tracks’, in which, for two weeks, we > walked part of a pilgrimage route in Brittany, and for four hours each day > walked as slowly as we possibly could (down to less than 250 m in 4 hours > by the end). Onlookers usually found it perplexing, when they took the time > to notice that rather than being still (disturbing in itself) we were very > slowly advancing. By the end, thanks in part to some misinterpretation by > local media which cast us as a ‘cult’, we were received with active > hostility, people coming out of their houses ready to defend their > community. > > Shifting tides - one that is daily accessible in the UK is the Thames > foreshore in London, which can be walked along the South Bank at low tide > but disappears at high tide… And the old river gates on the North Bank (on > Victoria Embankment) reveal how far the river extended before it was > embanked, and could do again no doubt. I’m reminded of Mark Wayman’s walk > to map the future edges of the water in London. > > Walking with our shame - carrying our own burden, not offloading it onto > remote others/public/private transport… (what was *on* your plinth, Phil?) > > The idea of walkers (whether by feet or other means, whether by choice or > necessity) keeping the world *going* is something I keep coming back to. > > Yours on one foot > > Rachel > > On 22 Jan 2016, at 09:30, Phil Smith <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > > yes, Carl, this is my worry about advocating slowness - some will see it > as a form of nostalgia, the point of the slowness I am advocating is to > place a torque on everything, to reveal the ultra-speed of things and > images - it is an aggressive act of disruption, rather than a soothing act > of reparation which would a possible next move in a strategic game of > velocities. To practice a nostalgic slowness might create a feeling of soft > well-being, but it would be the illusion of airliner, the 'traveller' > apparently 'at rest' in their seat while being hurled through the sky. > > FRIENDLY REMINDER: if you click REPLY to this email, you will be sending a > message to over 300 subscribers. Please do so only if you wish to respond > to everyone. > > To join, leave or suspend list postings, visit > http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/wan > > > FRIENDLY REMINDER: if you click REPLY to this email, you will be sending a > message to over 300 subscribers. Please do so only if you wish to respond > to everyone. > > To join, leave or suspend list postings, visit > http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/wan > FRIENDLY REMINDER: if you click REPLY to this email, you will be sending a message to over 300 subscribers. Please do so only if you wish to respond to everyone. To join, leave or suspend list postings, visit http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/wan