[credit]
“Walking the Edge invites New Yorkers to reconnect to the diversity of the city’s shorelines and have a voice in the city planning process. Walking the Edge uses walking to encounter, reflect upon, and see places anew. Walking the Edge is a collaboration between arts organizations Culture Push and Works on Water with the NYC Department of City Planning. Due to Covid-19, we transitioned to online platforms for this project. See walkingtheedge.nyc for more information.”
Tim Robinson “Oilerin Arann a map of the aran islands Co. Galway eire” (1996)
“Tim Robinson [1935-2020] is the alter ego of artist Timothy Drever whose abstract paintings and environmental installations were seen in a number of exhibitions in London before he moved to the west of Ireland in 1972. Robinson originally studied mathematics at Cambridge and worked as a teacher and artist in Istanbul, Vienna and London.
He and his wife, Máiréad [1934-2020], [then lived] in Roundstone in Connemara, where, in 1984, they established Folding Landscapes, a specialist publishing house and information resource center dealing with three areas of particular interest around Galway Bay: the Aran Islands, the Burren and Connemara. The maps and accompanying books are beautifully drawn and meticulously researched, explaining, often for the first time, the derivation and meaning of hundreds of place names and representing a wide range of information about the region’s culture and landscapes.
[They] gained much of this information literally on the ground, walking with naturalists, historians, archaeologists and other specialist through the landscape. [Their] maps and books provide an invaluable guide for visitors to the region as well as nourishing community spirit by identifying the irreplaceable uniqueness of the local environment and history. Tim and Mairead also run Unfolding Ideas, an annual Colloquium Series for scholars, educators and artists to engage in public talks, small group discussion and workshops in Roundstone, Connemara.”
Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker
“MoMA’s Performance Exhibition Series presents a program of live performance and dance in conjunction with the group exhibition On Line: Drawing Through the Twentieth Century. The dancing body has long been a subject matter for drawing, as seen in a variety of works included in this exhibition. These documentations show dance in two dimensions, allowing it to be seen in a gallery setting. But if one considers line as the trace of a point in motion—an idea at the core of this project—the very act of dance becomes a drawing, an insertion of line into time and the three-dimensional space of our lived world.
Choreography and dance: Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker
Music: Steve Reich, “Violin Phase” (1967)
Violin: Shem Guibbory
Duration: 16 minutes
Created at the Dance Department of New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, first performed in April 1981 at the Festival of Early Modern Dance, Purchase, New York.
Rosas is the dance ensemble and production structure built around the choreographer and dancer Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker. Find out more at www.rosas.be.” [credit]
“Five hundred volunteers with shovels gathered at a huge sand dune on the outskirts of Lima, Peru, and over the course of a day moved it by several inches. Alÿs developed the idea after first visiting Lima in October 2000. The political context was inescapable: “This was during the last months of the Fujimori dictatorship. Lima was in turmoil with clashes on the streets, obvious social tension and an emerging movement of resistance. This was a desperate situation calling for an epic response: staging a social allegory to fit the circumstances seemed more appropriate than engaging in a sculptural exercise.” The principle that drove When Faith Moves Mountains was “maximum effort, minimal result.” The most apparently minimal change was effected, and only by means of the most massive of collective efforts.
The action itself, as documented in photographs and video, is extraordinarily impressive, but in the end the “social allegory” takes over from the work’s undeniable formal presence. The action was completely transitory. The next day, no one could recognize that the huge sand dune had been moved. The true aftermath of the work lies in the ripples of anecdote and image that radiate out from it.” [credit]
[credit]
76 floor rubbings
made on the sidewalks of New York
18″ x 24″, graphite on paper, 2008
Edition of 3
There are seventy rubbings in the series and they were installed as a grid on the wall, with varying dimensions depending on the location. The simple act of tracing in this set of walking-based drawings asks questions about borders, public versus private space, and how people mark space.
—
“Francisca Benitez (b. 1974, Chile) lives and works in New York. Recent solo exhibitions include Cuchifritos Gallery + Project Space, New York (2014); Museo de Artes Visuales, Santiago, Chile (2013); Die Ecke, Santiago, Chile (2011); and Nada.Lokal, Vienna, Austria (2009). Notable group exhibitions include Mapping Brooklyn, Brooklyn Historical Society and BRIC House, Brooklyn (2015); Efemérides, Museo Histórico Nacional, Santiago, Chile (2014); Pier 54, High Line Art, New York (2014); One Minute Film Festival 2003 – 2012, MASS MoCA, North Adams, Massachusetts (2013); The Street Files, El Museo del Barrio, New York (2011); and Contaminaciones Contemporáneas, Museu de Arte Contemporánea da USP, Sao Paulo, Brazil (2010). Her work has been featured in major international exhibitions including the Bienal de la Habana, Cuba (2015); Lisbon Architecture Triennale, Portugal (2013) the Beijing Biennale, China (2009); and the LA Frewaves 10th biennial of film, video and new media, Los Angeles (2006).” (credit)
Eduardo Navarro – Poema Volcánico – 2014
Poema Volcanico deals with the Ecuadorian volcanic geography. In 2014, while climbing the active volcano Guagua Pichincha, Eduardo Navarro created drawings from litmus paper, which measured the acidity of the gas emissions produced by the fumaroles inside the crater of the volcano. [credit]
“Eduardo Navarro lived in Ecuador between the ages of eight and twelve. During that time, Navarro would eat breakfast and dinner daily in front of a volcano, pondering it. The artist noted that as an adult, it meant a lot to him to return to the country to create a work of art that was both sentimental and a personal artistic challenge.
Leading up to the 12th Bienal de Cuenca, Navarro got the idea for his volcano-related artistic endeavor. He thought, “How can I work with the geography, landscape, and energy of the volcano?“ Instead of documenting a volcano (since we live in a world overly saturated with on-demand digital imagery), he wanted to create a project that would allow the volcano to express itself, and to do this, decided that he would have to enter it.
Navarro then got in contact with renowned Ecuadorian volcanologist Silvana Hidalgo of the Instituto Geofísico in Quito to confirm for certain which volcano it would be possible for him to enter without assuming the actual risk that it would erupt while he was inside. Through his extensive research and conversations with Silvana, Navarro decided to work with the Guagua Pichincha volcano.
Guagua Pichincha was known as one of the safer active volcanoes to trek into in Ecuador. To provide a comparison, Cotopaxi was another option, but Navarro explained that one had to be on the level of a professional mountain climber to enter its crater. Guagua Pichincha, on the other hand, was known in Ecuador as the “training mountain” that one would tackle before becoming a professional climber.” [credit]
Guagua Pichincha volcano
“Once Navarro decided upon the Guagua Pichincha, he had to figure out what his process would be leading up to the climb and artistic execution. After spending the required monthlong period adjusting to the proper oxygen level for the climb, Navarro decided to enter the crater twice, with two different guides (including record-setting climber Karl Egloff). His first trip would be to see what the crater was like, test expectations, and become familiar with the experience of going inside it. His second trip would be geared toward executing the artistic portion of the project.
On the first trip, Navarro realized first-hand how difficult it was to trek down into the crater and come back up, regardless of the intense physical prep work he made sure to do in advance. Also on the first trip, Navarro identified fumaroles (the cracks where smoke escapes from the volcano’s center) as the feature of the volcano he wanted to pursue working with artistically.
In regard to how he was going to work with fumaroles, one of Navarro’s first ideas was to get a woven basket, lower it down into the crater, and then try to pull it back up and see what would come out. Navarro thought that this could be an interesting idea, not only because baskets are accessible and would allow gases and sulfur to move freely through them, but because choosing woven baskets would give him the opportunity to work with an object that was native to Ecuador.
Navarro then had only a ten-day period between his two descents to figure out the details of both the device he was going to provide the volcano with so that it could express something, and the protective suit he was going to wear during the trek (most volcanologists wear fire protection and oxygen masks when entering craters). He went to the local fire department and asked if he could borrow a fireproof suit, and while the personnel there couldn’t provide him with one, they directed him to where he could get the materials so that he could make one of his own.
There is no question that Navarro’s descent into the crater was a high-risk undertaking. Navarro noted:
It is a sad thing when you pass the guards in the front (entrance) at Guagua Pichincha. A few weeks prior, three geologists went in. One almost died and two had to be rescued with a helicopter, so this was much more dangerous than going for a hike, having a picnic, taking a photograph, and climbing out.” [credit]
Eduardo Navarro – Poema Volcánico – 2014
“Returning to the execution of his artistic endeavor, Navarro revisited the Instituto Geofísico to speak further with Silvana, who was crucial in the process. When Navarro raised the question, “How can I make the volcano draw?,” Silvana suggested the possibility of using litmus paper to react to the sulfur. Navarro immediately loved this idea, and started working with using litmus paper to create a machine that would allow the volcano’s energy to leave a trail. The result was a hand-made frame that acted as a rack for the sheets of litmus paper, which fit inside a custom woven basket that he worked closely with local artisans to create. Navarro wore the basket like a backpack during his trek, and eventually lowered it into the fumarole. He then left it down there for one hour, providing the volcano with a chance to leave its mark and express itself as if typing on a PH-reactive typewriter (example of result featured below – top right).
Ultimately Navarro titled this work Poema Volcánico because of the act of “handing the typewriter” over to the volcano. In other words, Navarro gave the volcano the power to express something that was not his interpretation of it.
To expand, it can be argued that Navarro gave true authorship to the volcano because he wasn’t attempting to control the project’s result. In fact, throughout the entire process, there was always the chance that the volcano and litmus paper wouldn’t have any real reaction at all. Even after months of preparation and two rigorous climbs, Navarro admitted that he was willing to accept any outcome. For Navarro, “it would have been fine if the volcano didn’t have anything to say.”
Setting himself apart from the many other talented artists who have been inspired by volcanoes throughout the centuries, Navarro’s intention was to transform the volcano from subject into artistic collaborator. Navarro does not claim that the volcano is necessarily the author of this work, nor that he himself is the author of this work. To Navarro, Poema Volcánico is about how well he and the volcano know each other.” [credit]
Eduardo Navarro – Poema Volcanico 2014
Larsen Husby “Turkeys crossing Stinson Blvd”
Watch video footage via MN Originals
“On October 3rd, 2016, I [Larsen Husby] decided to walk every street in Minneapolis. The parameters of this undertaking were as follows:
Following these rules, I walked 1,315 miles, finishing on June 26th, 2018.
The title, Long Trace of Minneapolis, addresses two crucial aspects of the work. ‘Trace’ refers to the piece as an act of drawing: my feet are a pencil, drawing invisible lines across the city. If one could see them, these lines would add up to form a trace of the entire street network, a map of Minneapolis the size of Minneapolis. ‘Long’ describes the temporal nature of the piece, which is a lived experience, not an object. Those invisible lines are drawn not only along the ground, but through minutes, hours, and days.
This website is a document of the piece. It contains records of the project in the form of maps, photographs, measurements, and written reflections.”
[credit]
“Rachael Clewlow meticulously documents the ways in which she inhabits the city in which she lives: the routes she takes through it, the times and dates of her travels, and the methods by which (to paraphrase Warhol) she moves from A to B and back again.
Several of the artists in ‘Walk On’ use GPS technologies to monitor their own movements through space. Clewlow, by contrast, prefers what the writer Robert Macfarlane has punningly called “the old ways”: she keeps a series of “statistical diaries” in which routes, traditional pathways or not, are “logged, through dedicated, almost ritualistic daily recording”. These diaries are exquisite objects in their own right. They are also the source material for Clewlow·s pictorial inventions.
Like other artists here, Clewlow creates her own systems of translation by which the patterns of her own mobility become abstract patterns of form and color. She describes her process as “the organization and presentation of related data, accumulated over years” into abstract imagery which “recalls the visual language of maps and their color coding systems, though their graphic style belies the rigorous and precise handmade approach to making them”. Indeed, Clewlow plays with the idea that her works should be functional, deliberately making them lie on the borders of legibility. Her conceptual and material dexterity ensure that her works instigate journeys in our imaginations.”
[credit]
“Brian Thompson has described his work as being “topographical in nature” – concerned with how places become known, understood, named and described. He is interested in the different ways in which we measure, describe and figure the land, and how his experience of walking through a landscape can be re-imagined through sculpture.
He uses a mixture of traditional craft skills allied to new technologies. His works ask us to imagine the formation of landscapes over a long timescale and explores the two- and three-dimensional forms and shapes associated with (amongst other things) walking through a site in order to map it and to unearth its history.
Thompson’s walks, recorded through GPS tracking or tracings from maps and aerial photographs, become the ‘line’ of the walks and the starting point of the sculptures and prints. These ‘lines’ are cut usually by hand and often in wood, with each layer becoming the template for the succeeding layer. Through small increments of size the sculptures evolve, tapering downward from top to base, incorporating errors and corrections; marking layer upon layer, in geological fashion, the history of their making. Sometimes these become ‘patterns’ for fabrication in materials and colors directly relevant to the location or simply have ‘come to mind’ when he makes the walks.
The work seen here combines forms alluding to archaeological and geological understandings of place, and to the imagined objectivity provided by Ordnance Survey mapping. Thompson notes of his three-dimensional works that “the sculptures serve as diaries, records, memories, souvenirs or trophies – celebrations of experiences of particular places”.”
[credit]
This work was made by dipping boots in acetone, and then walking across two blocks of styrofoam. The chemical ate away footprints, leaving a walking pattern.