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Everyone walks, and everyone always have. Despite destination, company and intention changing, the action of walking has never changed. During the 21st century many of can enjoy walking as an almost meditative practice, not exclusivily a nessecity. With walking comes alot of concious and sub concious decisions - where to walk, how long for, who with, do I turn left or right? What about AFTER the walk - what do you remember from this action? Is there an element of decision making within that? If we are experiencing walking as a meditative practice - do we remember the experience past the moment and if so what do we choose to remember? One way which this can be translated is through the photographs people choose to take - What is it that one chooses to remember/ or take home with us. Here below are a selection of images that I collected from friends, I asked for images that they had taken one their favourite walk or a new walk, but no other direction. So here below are the collection of images I recieved. I wanted to see what images people have individually collected over the years from walks they've been on, and what it was that they chose to take home with them from these experiences - which they have then shared with me to epitomise the act walking that they have experienced.

" Walking isn't a lost art:
one must, by some means, get to the
garage " - Evan Esar

-Choose a spot at one point on your walk to stop and sit for a bit – again this is your choice, just mark on the map the location of this spot

a walk where you can break ‘the freeze’ communally done but individually experienced – mythologise a landscape?

-dress weather appropriate

-follow the walk given to you, it should take approximately half an hour

-During the duration of the walk you must take 6 photos – these can be 6 of the same thing/ one every 10 minutes/ all of trees = whatever you decide

-I don’t want you to listen to music or look at your phone for the duration of the walk (obviously unless in danger)

-When you return home I will record you talking about the walk and explaining it back to me

I actually really hate that park… it feels like the nature is placed upon the concrete surroundings…… o god we’ve got loads of concrete we should build a park. Instead of this was park before and we then built houses on it

When you’re asked to think about what you notice ….
In and out of consciousness … forget every now and then….

o I remember I need to take a photo, so I then take a photo or umm was I taking photos cause they were genuienely interesting

The big tower is how I know I'm home when I'm in New Cross… reminds me of home

I went and sat on a bench and it was Sir Walter Raleigh's bench which I thought was a bit ridiculous, there are actual people who have enjoyed that park and I'm sure that
Sir
Walter Raleigh didn’t.

Wasn’t very fun,
and I don’t like reflecting on things,
and I don’t like not having distractions and I think Walking, meandering was a bit deep,
which I don’t really like

All the memories I have had on the route, like Avalon café…. As soon as I got to Deptford park I was thinking about a date that I had had there..

Maybe its strange that I seem to have to associate all of these things in relation to myself

Always seem to be looking for views

Important reference points for thinking -

*Nicholson, Geoff. 2008. The Lost Art Of Walking. 1st ed. New York: Riverhead Books.

*Phillips, Andrea. 2005. "Cultural Geographies In Practice: Walking And Looking". Cultural Geographies 12 (4): 507-513.

*The 'Weird Walk' Zine - specifically Issue 2

*Mekas, Jonas. 1981. Travel Songs. Film. United States.

*Jeremy Deller, Folk Archive, 2005 (with Alan Kane). https://www.jeremydeller.org/FolkArchive/FolkArchive.php

*https://www.theartnewspaper.com/archive/still-walking-after-all-these-years-interview-with-artist-richard-long

"I can use it as a simple human measure of time, like walking across a country, or from one planetary event to another, or from one shower of rain to the next."(1) - It is an active measurement for marking the movement from one moment to the next. Both spatially and temporally, the body transitions between different experiences. This measurements scale can vary from time, weather, company to name a few. This is completely dependant on the individual - and what they remember from their experience.

(1) https://www.theartnewspaper.com/archive/still-walking-after-all-these-years-interview-with-artist-richard-long

"They are important because they record experiences and places which I want to communicate and share. So although they are by nature “documentary”, I hope they become art in another way, on my terms." (2)
Once the experience has taken place what is the end product? The documentation of these events highlights the variation in personal experience and the process of memory. Through recording the experience of walking, it is interesting to see whether one is documenting the natural landscape that the body is in (as a camera would do) or is it more revolving the self within these environments. A documentation of the mind/ body, and how these interact within the natural landscape? Walking is often done as a meditative practice, so maybe the documentation is recording this experience of meditation. What is the differentiation between documentation of experience and an artwork? Or does the work lie in the recording of personal experience and the decisions that one makes in documenting these experiences.
(2) https://www.theartnewspaper.com/archive/still-walking-after-all-these-years-interview-with-artist-richard-long

In Andrea Phillips essay on 'walking and looking(3)' she observes the work of Tim Brennan, particularly his work 'mercator manoeuvre'. Brennan has coined his performance series as 'manoeuvre's', these take the form of guided-walks. Through these walks Brennan, the artist, leads people through a place and allows them to rethink these spaces and landmarks with a socially charged perspective(4). It is interesting to look at the role of the artist as the decision maker in this, Brennan decides and leads the narrative in the direction he wishes, therefore manipulating the outcome. The outcome of these well choreographed walks, is that everyone comes away with the same narrative from Brennan but experienced individually. Brennan is taking the role of narrator for the landscape, by guiding what the individual learns, this is conducted by narrating poems/ stories at particular points of the walk. This acts as a way of giving a voice to the histories of landscapes, and allows the social histories to become known and therefore intertwined with the experience of the natural landscape.

(3) Phillips, Andrea. 2005. "Cultural Geographies In Practice: Walking And Looking". Cultural Geographies 12 (4): 507-513.
(4)https://www.timbrennanartist.com/manoeuvre

The role of the artist within Brennan's 'manoeuvre', is as the storyteller, guiding the experience and interpretation people have of a landscape. This is a highly interactive and involved way of guiding experience, it is interesting to see the tension between instruction and decision as well as individual perspective and communal experience.