Susan Trangmar talking walking

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Artist and Lecturer in Fine Art at Central Saint Martins, Susan Trangmar is a visual artist working in the context of landscape, place and site and in particular the evolving relationships between material formations of ‘nature’ and ‘culture’. An early training in sculpture and photography has developed into lens based practices using digital ‘moving’ and ‘still’ image, sound including the spoken word and text.

When Susan learnt that Central St Martins were going to move from their historic Charing Cross Road site to their new home in Granary Square, Kings Cross, she set out to walk her regular routes in and around Bloomsbury framing the city by its street trees. Interested in ways that the street tree acts as both focus and frame for our perception and experience of the city, she considers the tree to be a key figure in the construction of an urban imaginary through photography. She developed this photographic project  ‘A Forest of Signs’ into the photo-essay ‘A Divided Glance: A Dialogue Between the Photographic Project “ A Forest of Signs” and the Figure of the Tree in Virginia Woolf’s Writing’ published in Literary London Journal (2013).

 

 

Susan’s curiosity of the juxtaposition of trees and buildings, makes for an intricate slow therapeutic walk. Recorded on a walk from Goodge Street tube station, London early on a  Sunday morning in January 2013. 24′ 42″ 11.6MB

Download notes of items mentioned in the interview: Susan_Trangmar

What Susan has been doing since our interview

Susan has produced a short text animation film ‘Lunar Tides’ reflecting upon the impact of the changing relationship between the moon and the earth’s trajectories over time which affects the ocean tides (2014): ‘Wandering Shards’, a combined moving image and essay work addressing the foreshore of the River Thames at Greenwich in order to develop a series of reflections upon the transformative potential of ‘waste’ material (bone) associated with the site, and UNFOUND a film marking the centenary of the Battle of the Somme during WW1.

She is currently researching processes of cognition in creativity and co-founder of Sensing Site a practice based research group engaging with questions around the political, material, and sensory natures of site, place, and space. https://sensingsite.blogspot.co.uk/

Photo credits: ‘A Forest of Signs’ detail (c) Susan Trangmar 2013

 

Christine Mackey talking walking

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Christine Mackey undertook an intriguing assignment for the Sideways Walking and Art Festival in Belgium in August 2012.  She carried a portable laboratory come studio to undertake a study of invasive plants along the Sideways route through semi-rural semi-suburban Flanders.  Working with two botanists she selected and catalogued a number of plants, concurrently recording her journey through video, still and sound recording instruments, to produce a multi-media installation in a barn in Turnhout.

The interview was recorded on site at Turnhout in September 2012. 16′ 06″ 7.5 MB

Download notes of items mentioned in the interview: Christine_Mackey

Photo credit: Kristaps Gulbis

Ali Pretty talking walking

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Ali Pretty describes herself as the analog partner in a collaboration that will result in a 100 mile walk that links the 8 white horses on the Wiltshire Downs to take place in August 2013.  Working with Richard White, a digital artist, together they will create an interactive exhibition including soundscapes, still and video imagery, conversations, and responses to the landscape at the Wiltshire Heritage Museum in Devizes.  Ali has an internationally recognised reputation as a painter of large scale silks, creating carnival costumes and flags for exhibitions and festivals.  Through a love of long distance walking she is moving away from the large scale to create a range of silk products inspired by long distance walks.

Recorded in the garden behind Ali Pretty’s studio offices in East London in June 2013 and published in August 2013 20’47” 9.7MB

Download notes of items mentioned in the interview: Ali_Pretty

Photo credit: Mike Jonston

Tim Stonor talking walking

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Tim Stonor is the Managing Director of Space Syntax Limited, a firm of architects and planners that are specialists in the scientific analysis of pedestrian behaviour. Their work looks at movement at every scale of the city, forecasting where people will walk, cycle, drive or be driven, should a change in the street pattern or built environment be altered. They have had a hand in the redevelopment of public realm in many traditional cities, not least in London’s prime public squares, but they have also developed forecasting techniques to predict movement patterns in future cities.

The discussion ranges widely, considering how we get around now and how digital technologies will alter the way we will navigate the cities of the future. The interview was recorded in St Andrew’s Gardens in Bloomsbury, just a short walk from Space Syntax’s offices, in June 2013. 24’33” 11.5MB

Download notes of items mentioned in this interview: Tim_Stonor

Amy Sharrocks talking walking

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Winner of the inaugural Sculpture Shock prize of the Royal British Society of Sculptors, London-born and raised Amy Sharrocks, talks about her love of her home town, and how much she enjoys sharing discoveries with fellow walkers and swimmers. One could argue, that she is infatuated with water, not just consuming the stuff, SwimmersatPelicanbut swimming her way across London; but in truth, her interests are in journeying by whatever means as long as the mode provides the traveller with time to contemplate and daydream.

In this interview with Andrew Stuck, recorded on the eve of the selection of the Sculpture Shock winner in November, 2012, Amy talks about the range of her work and how she sees live art as a clear way in which we humans sculpt our everyday urban lives.

Download notes of items mentioned in the interview with Amy_Sharrocks

More details of the Sculpture Shock prize and the Royal British Society of Sculptors and from here you can read their blog about Amy Sharrocks piece “Falling”
Photo credits in podcast: Ruth Corney.  Podcast duration 18′ 50″ and size 8.8MB

STOP PRESS In October 2014, The Museum of London commissioned Amy’s Invitation to Fall for their Late London: Sherlock’s City, part of their exciting Sherlock Holmes Exhibition.

Eleanor Davis and Bram Arnold talking walking

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Bram Thomas Arnold and Eleanor Wynne Davis talk to Andrew Stuck about their collaboration at the Sideways Walking and Art Festival in Belgium in 2012. Both artists grew up in rural corners of Wales and this proximity to the countryside is drawn upon in their collaborative practice that incorporates writing, performance, live music, and for Sideways an innovative technology called Field Broadcast. 20’30” 9.6MB

Download podcast notes from the interview with Bram Thomas Arnold and Eleanor Wynn Davies.

 

Deirdre Heddon talking walking

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In this episode, we hear from Deirdre Heddon who teaches theatre studies at the University of Glasgow, and who has a particular research interest in making the work of women walking artists more visible. The interview was recorded en route during a break in ‘The Walking Library’, a performance piece conceived by Dee and Misha Myers for the Sideways 2012 Walking and Art Festival. With the help of a troupe of volunteer walking librarians the Library of more than 90 books, was walked 375km across Belgium. In the interview we also discuss how Dee celebrated her 40th birthday by undertaking 40 walks with family, friends and colleagues. 18’54” 8.9MB

Download notes of items mentioned in the interview with Dee_Heddon

Listen to Dee Heddon’s 2013 5 year walking forecast

Dee Heddon shares her 20×20 Vision of walking in 2040

Reg Carremans talking walking

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An interview with Reg Carremans a landscape painter who makes his work through walking or rubbing against the environment in which he is in. He was the only Belgian artist to complete the 375km Sideways 2012 Walking and Art Festival route across Flanders. P1030037 copy copyHe wore canvas on the soles of specially adapted walking boots to gather multiple impressions for a series of ‘landscape paintings’ displayed en route. Interviewed on the Festival route by Andrew Stuck in August 2012 16’10” 7.6MB

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Foster Spragge talking walking

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Foster Spragge, is a painter, who while searching for a venue in the City of London criss-crossed the Square Mile in a deliberate way recording her route by making pencil marks on a large piece of paper. 5days3nightsThis act began a body of Walking Drawings that has led her to other cities and on pilgrimage walks. Walking Drawings represent the process of walking. The interview by Andrew Stuck was recorded in July 2012 at Foster’s south London studio. 19’34” 9.2MB

Download notes from the interview with Foster_Spragge

What Foster has been doing since our interview:

“Since the 2012 recording
2013
Exhibition ‘Chance’  – The Gallery, Westminster WC2
Solo show drawing  attention to simple experiences and recording finds to create new physical manifestations. Works included displaying the results of a three-year project collecting over 2,500 coins found in and around London streets.  Plus undertaking a large, site specific wall piece, created by ‘mapping’ the tossing of a coin during the show – logging whether it landed on Heads or Tails.

2014
Exhibition ‘Responses’ – Flat B, Highbury, N5
Solo show dispatching specific 2D marks on paper to 36 people and asking them to return them ‘re-arranged’ as if responding to an ‘un-posed’ question enabling me to respond in 3D

2014 – 2016
Exhibition ‘Between Thought and Space’ – Dilston Grove Gallery , Southwark SE16
Group show collaborating with other visual Artist/Architect’s/and those working in Sound and Dance creating works responding to Dilston Grove over a 2 year period. My culminating piece consisted of a 8 cubes each equal in size to my body volume, and each made out of soil collected from different locations. Continuing the theme of how we occupy space and move through it (‘Walking Drawings’). The 8 Cubes starting in a simple wall formation, then throughout the exhibition, they were knocked over, dragged and rebuilt along an East West line within the space.

2017 – Current
‘Walk West Swim East’ – 2018 ongoing
An exploration into the River Thames though Drawing, Walking and Swimming. Walking Lengths of the River with the thought of swimming it brings a completely new experience of observation. Last year the River was walked and swum to a point 28 Linear miles from the source. Continuing this year to reach further downstream. I have also been making a series of Walking Drawings heading West from Teddington Lock with the intention of reaching the point where the swimming path will finish.

In London I have also been using Tom Bolton’s book ‘London’s Lost  Rivers’ exploring the Thames’ forgotten tributaries, many now well covered, through a series of  Walking Drawings.  You can listen to Tom Bolton on a previous Talking Walking episode.”

For links to each of these projects, please download the podcast notes from this interview with Foster_Spragge.

 

Katrina Naomi talking walking

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In this episode, Andrew Stuck talks to Katrina Naomi, a poet and walker who lives in Penzance, Cornwall.

Her latest collection is The Way the Crocodile Taught Me (Seren 2016)  She is currently poet-in-residence at the Leach Pottery in St Ives. She has just returned from an Arts Council writing project in Japan, where she was walking in the poet Basho’s footsteps. Katrina has a PhD in creative writing from Goldsmiths and has previously been writer-in-residence at the Bronte Parsonage Museum in Yorkshire, at the Arnolfini in Bristol and at Gladstone’s Library in North Wales.

The interview was recorded in September 2011 on a walk across Streatham Common close to where Katrina lives. 16’32” 7.8MB

Download notes from the interview with Katrina_Naomi

STOP PRESS – Katrina was commissioned by BBC Local Radio to write and record a poem for National Poetry Day 2018 – you can watch a video of her reciting ‘Countrywoman‘ set in Cornwall or download the poem form Katrina’s website

Adam Shaw talking walking

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An interview with Adam Shaw, who having worked for 13 years on the ‘front line’ of the NHS as a nurse on a heart ward, has used his experiences there to develop Walk Innovation, a health and personal development programme to help people overcome stress and avoid heart disease. WalkInnovationlogoThe interview was recorded on a walk around St Albans on a sunny afternoon in May 2011. 19’48” 9.3MB

Download notes from the interview with Adam_Shaw

What has Adam Shaw done since our interview?

Adam Shaw has gone on to write “The Lunatic Gene – How to make sense of your life.”

“ I’m targeting stress at work these days, as well as running my own alternative business networking group – join me.“

 

Phoebe Taplin talking walking

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Phoebe Taplin, a freelance journalist and international walk route author, talks to Andrew Stuck. At the time of the interview Phoebe had recently returned from Moscow, where she and her husband had lived for the past 4 years. In her effort to discover the city, she formed a walking group and researched where to walk in Moscow. MoscowWalksSpringMany of these walks were published in the Moscow News, a local paper, and Phoebe is selecting 48 of these to be published in guide book form. The interview was recorded in May 2011 on a walk around residential streets in Bishops Stortford, a marked contrast from many of the walks in Moscow. 20’39” 9.7MB

Download notes from the interview with Phoebe_Taplin

BookcoverWhat has Phoebe done since our interview

“2011 onwards: I have a walking group, composed of random friends and contacts, and I lead walks most weeks all over the South East and beyond… We’ve walked the Capital Ring, London Loop, Thames path, Herts Way, Essex Way, Icknield Way and many others… Last year we also explored (among other things) ‘Global London’, following on from several years of ‘Russian London’…

2011-2012 – Wrote four seasonal walking guides to Moscow; 11,000 copies of each one were published! The Summer guide has now sold out and Autumn is almost gone; Spring and Winter still available (for now) on Amazon https://www.amazon.co.uk/Moscow-Walks-Winter-Phoebe-Taplin/dp/5905600023. Since we talked, the international arm of the old state news agency Ria Novosti, which published my books, has been closed down by the Russian Government and the Moscow News is long gone too. I think they were both a bit too independent for the increasingly authoritarian regime there.

2013 – Wrote a little book about Henley-on-Thames for Pitkin Press and the Rowing Museum https://www.amazon.co.uk/Henley-Thames-Pitkin/dp/1841654299/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

Since the interview, I have explored the area I now live in very thoroughly and been involved in the local Footpath association…
2014-2015 – Wrote two walking guides to the lovely Harcamlow Way (a long distance route through Essex, Hertfordshire and Cambridgeshire), also available on amazon. https://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=harcamlow+way

Regular contributions to various travel magazines including Country Walking Magazine, covering East of England and beyond.

2018 – two forthcoming books of film-related walks upcoming with Pitkin Press. One of these is a Film Lovers Guide to Oxford, including walks along the Thames Path and beyond. The other is a guide to locations for the TV series Outlander (!) around Glasgow and Edinburgh.

My other latest project involves researching car-free travel guides across the UK for a new website, Good Journey, which promotes and celebrates getting about on trains, buses, on foot and by bike, https://www.goodjourney.org.uk/.”