Category Archives: Adventurer

Interviews with adventurers

Daniella Turbin talking walking

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Andrew Stuck has travelled to Wolverhampton to meet Daniella Turbin, whose walking art practice includes drawing and photography, to talk about her year long project “A Place to Return To”. We take a walk for an hour beside a canal that runs from Wolverhampton to Stoke-on-Trent. For Daniella, this is just a short walk, as starting in May 2022 she began walking alone for 367 days through the whole of Britain on a route that touched every county and would link up with other walking artists, with the overall intention of finding out more about the country since the pandemic. 

Her year long adventure, apparently went without mishap, unlike their walk beside the canal. During their walk Andrew’s recorder stopped and they were unsure when it had stopped, so tried to remember what they may have already discussed. They passed through a group of men who were taking drugs and drinking alcohol and were overtaken by another man, wheeling a giant tractor tyre. Intrusive industrial sounds from the neighbouring warehouses interrupted their conversation but they were lucky as they occasionally entered tunnels in which the ambience changed significantly, and they were able to talk without raising their voices. 26’57” 12.6MB

Photo credit: Images from the exhibition by David Rowan

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Alastair Humphreys talking walking

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Andrew Stuck has agreed to meet adventurer Alastair Humphreys at Swanscombe station and walk with him towards the Thames estuary to talk about his new book “Local”. To be honest, Andrew has never been to Swanscombe station, and as he found out later, neither had Alastair.

It is an area of the estuary that is less well trodden. They certainly didn’t encounter many people on foot, however, Andrew was fairly confident that in Alastair’s company they wouldn’t get lost, as Alastair has walked the Empty Quarter, cycled round the world and rowed across the Atlantic. So surely a walk of a couple of miles to the river wouldn’t be their undoing?

21’57” 10.3MB

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Tamsin Grainger talking walking

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Only since Covid has Tamsin Grainger discovered Walking art, but in that short time she’s made two Soundwalks, which have been shortlisted for the Sound Walk September Award and she has made many other works.

A Shiatsu practitioner, she bartered  treatments for home stays, on long-distance walks across Europe and became known on the Camino for helping with pulled muscles and tired legs. You can’t help but be inspired by the story she tells. 25’40” 12MB

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Daniel Beerstecher talking walking

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Daniel Beerstecher is a walking artist from Germany.  Over the last few years, he has been focussing on walking slowly, very slowly – just two metres a minute.  In our conversation, we explore why and how he has achieved this, as well as how it has changed him personally, and how it has changed the way others see him.   We live in a society where everything appears to be speeding up, yet here is someone deliberately going as slow as he can; he is curious too, to see if he can influence how Artificial Intelligence and  robots in particular, can be taught to slow down. 24’13” 11.3MB

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Photo: Daniel Beerstecher
Photo: Stanislaus Plewinski
Photo: Bert Schutzbach

Yannis Ziogas talking walking

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Out at a restaurant in Gerona having dinner, late in the evening, Andrew Stuck discovers that his plan to interview walking artist Yannis Ziogas the following morning have gone awry as Yannis has to leave on the earliest flight.  So to interview Yannis in person, they had to do it there and then.  They walk near-deserted streets close to midnight, talking about Yannis’ unique bond with Prespa, on the disputed, remote northern border of Greece. 32’26” 15.2MB

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Clara Gari talking walking

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Andrew Stuck is in Olot, Catalunya, in the company of Clara Gari, the founder of the Nau Côclea Contemporary Art centre and of The Grand Tour, an annual nomadic walking art residency that Clara has developed over the last eight years.  Previously having received public funding to run a conventional art centre offering exhibitions, workshops and talks, a political change meant the funding was withdrawn, and Clara struggled to keep the art centre alive.  Thinking out of the box, she reprised a personal walking journey she had made in 2003, in which she walked for three weeks on a 200 kilometre route that linked artists and friends, to create what she called The Grand Tour that now follows a spiral route through eastern Catalunya and the Pyrenees. 22’23″ 10.5MB

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Jez Hastings talking walking

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On a hot summer’s day at a walking conference in Girona, Catalunya, Andrew Stuck is accompanying self-styled photo troubadour, Jez Hastings on a short stroll.  Jez has been known to walk to similar conferences, including a walk through Italy, Albania and Macedonia to reach a gathering in Prespas – walking long distances is in his blood.  They talk about why that is so, and how and why Jez has developed his practice of ‘a pace of purpose without purpose’, of making art through experiencing landscapes on durational walks, and in taking fewer photographs…27’31” 12.9MB

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Image credits: Feature portrait: F.Tanguy Landscape: J.Hastings

Alex Middleton talking walking

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Andrew Stuck is in the company of Alex Middleton, one of the creators of Vespucci Adventures, that encourages people to put away their smart phones, to walk in the ‘great outdoors’.  He has come to Greenwich to walk around Andrew’s local neighbourhood and talk about how he and his co-founder have worked tirelessly over the last five years to build a business around a shared passion for walking.  It may be a passion, but as yet, it is not a profitable business.  The COVID pandemic brought trials but let them also develop the business in other ways, and Alex tells us what their plans are for the next five years, as well as offering some candid advice to anyone considering turning their walking passion into a business.  26’44” 12.5MB

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Quintin Lake talking walking

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Photographer Quintin Lake set himself a daunting challenge, to walk and photograph the coastline of Great Britain.  It is turning into an 8-year project, as he is now editing hundreds of photographs he has taken on the coastal walks, around what he has aptly called ‘The Perimeter’. Andrew Stuck catches up with him on a bright and breezy day along the Cotswold Way, a favourite local walk of Quintin’s. Although Quintin has spent five years solitarily walking, which he describes as ‘oneliness’, he is great company, and he tells Andrew about why walking and photography are so integral to his life,  and how there is a kind of creative magic in walking more and photographing less.  26’02” 12.2MB

Approaching Skegness, March 2020
Happy camper, Port an t-Salainn, Point of Knap, Argyll & Bute, Scotland.
Quintin Lake
Image: Tom Martin

Feature and portrait image: Tom Martin, all others: Quintin Lake

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Andrea Vassallo talking walking

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Andrew Stuck is in Bognor, in West Sussex on a very hot day, walking around the University of Chichester campus with Andrea Vassallo. Andrea is completing a PhD with an installation in which gallery visitors will be able to experience walking beside him on a long walk. For Andrew, long walks tend to be 12 to 15 kilometres; for Andrea, he chose to walk from his home in Lancing (UK) to his childhood home on the outskirts of Venice (Italy) during the summer of 2021.

If you happen to be anywhere near Bognor in the first two weeks of September 2022, visit the installation and experience, falling in step with Andrea as he walks to Italy.

The conversation is about the walk Andrea undertook and why long distance walking is so important to him and (spoiler alert) we also cover details of the exhibition – the conversation opens with Andrea explaining how far he walked and how it took him. 28’47” 13.5MB

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Martyn Howe talking walking

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There are 19 long distance national trails in the UK and you are about to hear from Martyn Howe, a man who has walked each of them, but he hasn’t stopped walking, and he is now completing the newly designated English coast path.  So what got him going in the first place, and what kept him going, and what is his advice to anyone considering walking one or more of the national trails?  Andrew Stuck tries to keep up with him as they walk through Regent’s Park in London, as Martyn explains his mantra of beast, feast and yeast and how his endeavours got published in his book, aptly called the Tales from the Big Trails. 23’10” 11.1MB

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Tough Soles talking walking

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“Tough Soles“, aka Ellie Berry and Carl Lange, set themselves a challenge to walk and make video recordings of each of the 42 national way marked trails in Ireland. This adventure was in part to better understand their home country, and grew to be an awareness-raising project encouraging others to discover the trails and the countryside through which they pass. One marvels at Ellie’s and Carl’s determination and discipline.  Andrew Stuck would have loved to have accompanied them on the trails as their infectious enthusiasm and sheer joy spills through in this interview, that we recorded on Zoom. Andrew was also intrigued to establish how this mammoth walking adventure might have impacted on their relationship. 28′.53″ 13.5MB

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