Walking as Practice (WAP23)
Björkö Konstnod Artists Residency - October 2023Robert MacFarlane
on Nan Shepherd
The Living Mountain
For Shepherd, the body thinks best when the mind stops, when it is 'uncoupled' from the body. She writes exquisitively of these moments on the mountain when one 'is not bedeviled by thought'... the best way of all to uncouple the mind is to walk: 'After hours of steady walking, with the long rhythm of motion sustained until motion is felt, not merely known by the brain, as the "still centre" of being... [you] walk the flesh transparent.' 'On the mountain', she says in the book's closing sentences, 'for an hour I am beyond desire. It is not ecstacy... I am not out of myself, but in myself. I am. That is the final grace accorded from the mountain.
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In October 2023 I was invited to rural Sweden to take part in an artists residency aimed specifically at artists with a walking practice. Without specific agenda or expectation, the residency acted as a space for artists from around the world to come together, discuss, experiment, collaborate and develop their ideas and practices.
My research and its outcomes can be viewed in their entirety here:
https://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/2454801/2454866
Chasing Sunyata
[working title]
two performances
on the beach at Rumshamnsvägen
Björkö-Arholma, Sweden
Friday 13th October 2023
Documented using moving image
6mins
7mins
