Tag Archives: walking

Dan Koop talking walking

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For many the Covid pandemic has been a difficult time to live through, not least for the residents of Melbourne in Australia, who may well have had to endure the longest lockdown of any city. For Dan Koop, a curator and producer, the lockdown appears to have actually given him an opportunity to explore new ways of working, reconnecting with his immediate neighbourhood environment, as well as tackling common societal issues from a local perspective. Andrew Stuck catches up with him midway through an extended European trip of Dan’s on a sunny afternoon in July 2024. They are walking together along an unmade road on the outskirts of Girona in Spain. 20’12” 9.5 MB

Flowing Loops documentation
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Molly Wagner talking walking

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Andrew Stuck is walking through the streets and around the battlements of the fortified city of Girona in Catalonia, Spain. He is in the company of Molly Wagner an American who has lived in Australia for many years.  Neither of them are certain of finding their way. Molly is the author of “No Trespassing”, a sumptuous photographic journal of a number of long walks that she made through urban, suburban and rural New South Wales. They are both attending the Walking Art and Relational Geographies conference organised by Clara Gari of Nau Côclea, at which Molly will be talking about the formation and growth of Australian Walking Artists, for which she is a convenor. 27’25” 12.9 MB

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Henry Fletcher talking walking

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Andrew Stuck is on Sutton Heath in Suffolk with Henry Fletcher, author, way finder and wilderness guide turned walking artist. He is fairly confident that he is not going to get lost as Henry has more than a decade’s experience in guiding people in Iceland in much harsher conditions than they are encountering on a Spring day in May.

With the help of Jay Simpson a fellow trail maker and workshop facilitator they authored the Banff Mountain Literature Award-winning “Wayfinding in the Westfjords” along with a companion trails map and two other guides to the local ecology and walking conditions. The books include reflections and responses from scores of participants who have taken part in artistic residences and trail restoration workshops that Henry and Jay devised and led . By raising money for the publication through a kickstarter crowd funding campaign they were able to hire a book designer, a botanical illustrator, as well as translating the books. 

It turns out that although they have created far more than a walking guide with a book filled with beautiful photographs and artwork, Henry as a self-proclaimed way finder is not someone inclined to use a guidebook or to follow a well marked trail, so Andrew is intrigued how in creating this suite of books and map may have modified Henry’s own practice. Similarly Henry is an enthusiastic supporter for the world trails network, for which he created a film festival and a series of artist talks.

32’31” 15.2MB

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Image credits: Julie Wegner, Jay Simpson, Henry Fletcher

Natacha Antão Moutinho and Miguel Jorge Alves Miranda Bandeira Duarte talking walking

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The Portuguese partners in the Walking Arts and Local communities project are from the University of Minho in Guimaraes directly working with two educators in particular, Natacha Antão Moutinho and Miguel Jorge Alves Miranda Bandeira Duarte.  Since 2018 they’ve been working with Geert Vermeire from Belgium on a week long residency called The Walking Body in which international walking artists join graduate students.

Andrew Stuck has been lucky enough to have met Natacha and Miguel at different events over the last few years. It is hard to separate them, and many have made a similar mistake to that of Andrew, in thinking that they are man and wife or artistic collaborators. However, they each have partners and families of their own, and it’s only as educators that they work together. Each is an enthusiastic and passionate walking artist in their own right.

Somehow, Andrew managed to find a window in their busy schedule during The Walking Body 5 to walk out with them in the vicinity of the university’s newly opened campus. It stands beside now redundant leather and textile washing tanks, with channels and tunnels with rushing water still flowing through a once busy industrial site. 22’57” 10.8MB

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Stephen Ford talking walking

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Author and long-distance walker Stephen Ford and Andrew Stuck are walking through woodland beside open fields with traffic on the A3 rushing past half a mile away.

It’s not the first time that Stephen and Andrew have met to record an interview. Six weeks ago they had walked across Esher Common together and much to Andrew’s embarrassment he discovered that his voice recorders’s hard drive was full to capacity, so much of the interview wasn’t actually recorded.

Stephen forgave him this ‘schoolboy error’ and this time proposed that they walk on common closer to Claygate.  As you will discover from their conversation, there’s a necklace of publicly accessible common in this part of Surrey, that is much frequented by dog walkers and joggers. The interview opens with Stephen talking about where it is they are walking. 21’59” 10.3MB

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Fred Adam talking walking

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It is the first time that the 4 year Walking Art and Local Communities project partners have met in person and the excitement is palpable. Developing the partnership and writing a successful proposal to the EU for funding to support Walking arts has taken quite a few years.

Andrew Stuck is with Fred Adam one of the team from Gigacircus, the French partners in this pan European project. Fred and Andrew have met before and they have known each other for several years both sharing an interest in geolocated media, sound walks and digital storytelling 

They are not exactly sure of their whereabouts having taken a cable car to a scenic point above the regional city of Guimaraes in north east in Portugal. They are in luck as they begin their conversation just as a church bell strikes.

23’30” 11MB

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Kim Goldsmith talking walking

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Andrew Stuck planned meeting up with Australian Kim Goldsmith sometime in advance, knowing that she would be returning from a residency on Skye with her partner and would only have a short time in London. They were staying in a hotel just south of Kings Cross, so Andrew met them there, with the intention of finding quiet spaces nearby in which to record an interview. Andrew accompanied Kim on a walk towards the Camley Street Nature reserve and Old Saint Pancras Churchyard, both of which he assumed would be quiet, calm spaces.

Kim is a sound recordist and a digital storyteller, and considers herself an environmental artist, like others, whom Andrew has recorded who have a practice in sound, it would seem inevitable that wherever they go sounds and noises intrude on their conversation. The interview with Kim was no exception, as you will discover.

The good news is that Kim took it in very good spirits! What could possibly go wrong? 22’58” 10.8 MB

Andrew Howe KV Goldsmith July2023 walking on Whixall Moss
Kim by the Wambuul Macquarie River June2022
Kim listening to kelp Skye Aug2024

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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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Mick Douglas talking walking

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Andrew Stuck is with Mick Douglas, a self-confessed, long-distance solo hiker. He has worked as an artist researcher into creative practice at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, for three decades. Much of his work was around the interaction of people within modes of transport, comparing practices in cities in Australia to cities in India.

We are walking along the uneven shingle beach of the Great Prespa Lake in western Macedonia in north west Greece, as Mick has come to present a piece of work at the Walking Arts Encounters there. 

He’s here to talk about and demonstrate a piece he developed for an unusual festival in New Zealand in which he takes a solo hike for four days within a shipping container. If that’s not unusual enough, he goes on to tell Andrew how he is hosting and ghosting walks around a 40 acre block of land. He is developing an ecological practice in which he invites people to engage with their surroundings in part, listening to commentary that he’s created as a sound walk. 25’42’ 12MB

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Rachel Epp Buller talking walking

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Rachel Epp Buller is an inter-disciplinary artist based in Kansas in the United States. She is the recipient of two Fulbright scholarships, the latest of which she went to wintry Edmonton in north west Canada to make a piece of walking art called “One Hundred Days of Walking”. Her piece has now been shortlisted for the inaugural Marŝarto Award for Walking Art.

Andrew Stuck and Rachel talk over the Internet on a Zoom call about the importance to her of using different media to create work, including embroidery, bookmaking, and recording the sounds of the environment through which she walks.  They also discuss how she maintained her discipline throughout the 100 days by keeping to a ‘walking score’, and how she has exhibited the work.

The interview opens with Andrew asking Rachel to explain a little bit about the Fulbright scholarship programme. 18’11” 8.5MB

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Images from One Hundred Days of Walking, 2022, an installation of 100 accordion books, cotton, and vinyl (one full installation view and one detail).