How do you document Walking art? Asks your host, Clara Gari from Nau Côclea.
For some artists documenting their work is a process of making a further an artwork in itself, for others the walk is the document.
In 1998, the CDAN (The Centre of Art & Nature) in Huesca, Spain, commissioned a piece for its outdoor sculpture and land art collection from the artist Richard Long: a circle of stones to be placed at the foot of the Maladeta peak, the highest in the Pyrenees that was to be named “Spanish Circle”. Richard Long accepted the commission but requested to create the work during a solo walk through the Aigualluts Valley. Five days later, the CDAN received a photograph with indications that the piece was located in a hard-to-reach area. Thirty years later, nature has made the circle of stones disappear but Richard Long’s work – as a piece of walking art – remains one of the most important pieces in CDAN’s collection.
This case excellently illustrates the questions we will discuss here: for some artists, walking itself is the artwork. For others, the documentation of the journey is not the work itself but is essential for communicating the project on a lasting basis. In such cases, how do they document the work, and how do they share and show it to the public? What resources and strategies best capture the experience and creation of the artist: travel journals, photographs, drawings, sound recordings, video?
So we are asking prominent Walking Artists to tell us how they document their walking work.
We would like to draw from as wide a world of artists, including from our own community, and this event is to launch a series of online café events over the next three years, to which we will invite artists to discuss documenting work.
We are delighted that Ernesto Pujol, social choreographer, author and educator, will illustrate how he documents his walking art.
Confluence events are an opportunity for you to learn more about the part-EU funded Walking Art and local Communities project, and at this event, project Artistic-coordinators Yannis Ziogas and Geert Vermeire will in addition to updating you with the WALC project progress, will also choose examples of what they consider well-documented work from previous Prespa Walk Encounters.
NOTE: Presentations will be made in English, and where possible we will provide Spanish translation.
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The co-funded EU Walking Arts and Local Communities (WALC) project offers an opportunity for public scrutiny of the project, by running bi-monthly free “Confluence events”, in which project partners come together to present how the aspect of the project for which they are responsible is progressing.