Taking Thread and Word to Edinburgh 

I am preparing a walk as a part of the Threads exhibition at Dundas St Gallery, the walk will take place on  the 7th of July from 2 - 4 pm.

Looking Forward

I visited Edinburgh on Monday  April 24th with Renee Rilexie, curator of the Artists Pool, https://www.theartistspool.co.uk.

We met with artists from The Suntrap Studio https://www.suntrapstudio.com and, visited the Dundas st Gallery. We were in good company as Hamish Foulton has an exhibition which had just opened in the gallery upstairs.

We had such a lovely reception and walked to Inverleith House in preparation for another walk with Thread and Word on July 7th.It was fantastic that so many ideas have already developed from one visit .

Cecilia Vicuña wrote Word and Thread at Inverleith House in 1970. I was hoping that they would include images of her work Precario from their archive in their exhibition in July, however the sign for the exhibition says it includes work from 1889, so not likely.This is the first exhibition at Inverleith House since they closed the gallery last October as a cost cutting exercise.

Maybe we can invoke the spirit of her work through our walk.

Jil Rock http://cargocollective.com/JillRock , one of our artist/walkers and a great contributor to #Thread and Word, sent me this about Cecilia Vicuña and Art for Democracy:

"I think I mentioned on the city walk that I had been in touch with a friend of mine John Dugger whilst he was showing work at Raven Row.

John was Cecilia's partner and co worker in Artists for Democracy.

Artists for democracy worked over many years with a simply defined ethos:

J A V

Joy

Autonomy 

Voluntary

They also had 4 watchwords - art as participation - as labour - as information - as energy

when I was on a walker's walk a few weeks ago on Dungeness I suggested to the group that they made a work whilst walking along using a barbecue rack I had found on the beach the day before on the condition that they worked as JAV"

and so the works continues .

I hope some of you can join us on this walk. It is ticketed on evenbrite, #ThreadandWord. The walk is free but numbers will be limited.

Developing Thread and Word

So the work progresses in many different ways.

Quipucamayocs

I have been busy in the studio making 'Quipucamayocs', a series of artefacts using the ropes knotted by walkers during the development of the walks culminating in Thread and Word at Espacio Gallery last March.

Thread and Room

@AllanStruthers who participated in the Thread and Word walk at Espacio has collaborated with Robbie and Hannah (also on the walk)  to make  Thread and Room. 

"Having been inspired by the use of movement and thread as a method of communication, we, over the course of 2 hours, silently engaged in a dance that began to explore the inside our house. It was an event that gave a kind of language to the physical space between us. For this we used thread, coloured paper, rubber bands, and the music of Julia-Holter

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NM-WnjqB8EY. "

It's amazing how ideas develop and grow through artistic collaboration. For more about Thread and word and Allan's intervention, Seen not Heard:  the Choice of Listening to Objects, http://www.elspeth-billie-penfold.com/thread-and-word-texts-used-in-walk

I am looking forward to a trip to Edinburgh tomorrow, April 24th with Renee Rilexie, curator of the Artists Pool, https://www.theartistspool.co.uk.

We will be meeting with artists, visiting Dundas st Gallery and Inverleith House and preparing for another walk with Thread and Word in July.  Let me know if you'd like to  collaborate.

Walking with the Waste Land 

Creating new encounters through walking.

  April : The Garden Gate to Northdown Park.                 

We have just started a series of exploratory walks following a route from the Garden Gate in Margate through Northdown House gardens and into Northdown Park.

 The intention is to do one walk a month and to engage with the site and use the opportunity to notice the seasonal changes as we walk the area regularly.

The plan is to produce a short leaflet recording what we saw on the walk which can then be used by visitors to the garden and the park.

 We are hoping that community members from the Garden Gate project will join us and that they will contribute to producing further leaflets recording the walks for each month.

For more about the Garden Gate:http://www.thegardengateproject.co.uk/location.html

We all had a great time on our first walk and are looking forward to the next one on May 17th.

Let me know if you'd like to join us!