An Invitation to a Winter Solstice Walk with #52more

You are invited to join Blake and me as we walk into winter.

The idea for this walk began in June when I responded to Blakes's call with an offer to be part of a walking project that he has been running for some time. You can read about the project here: More about #52more

I am offering a little preamble to my walk here as I prepare to walk tomorrow. 

I  emailed Blake in June and was delighted to receive my words in the post together with a leaflet. The instructions allowed me to use the words and the leaflet in whatever way I chose. Blake suggested that this should take place over seven days. This included using both sides of the cut-out words and doing as I wished with the leaflet.

 With some trepidation (why are we so afraid of getting it wrong ), I created this collage which, as I have looked at it over time, resembles a map. I am guessing this is because the leaflet had a map on it.

I made this piece as my suggestion for a walk with Blake six months ago or more. So I have had quite some time to think about it.

 I wrote a score by cutting and pasting the words I was sent, and Blake has provided his understanding of how to approach/ interpret it. I have included this below: 

We’ll be walking through books of our choosing and crafting stories of space (how does walking function as a storytelling mechanism). Read the score, interpret it how you like, and join us as autumn turns into winter.

I have spent a great deal of time thinking about it.

My thinking has led me on a path that I am briefly outlining below.

My original book which I was going to reference was La Ciudad de las Bestias by  Isabel Allende, which for some reason in my mind was The Forbidden City.

I then saw that the English translation for the title of Allende's book was City of the Beasts, in my head it had always been The Forbidden City, who knows why? As you will see at the end of this posting this has proved rather fortuitous.

As I considered how walking might function as a storytelling mechanism,  I started to consider the map-like qualities of the collage that I had made from Blake's words. This took me to A Different LENS. This is a map I created with 12 artists and the Margate Bookie which takes you on walks using locative media and Literature.

You can access the map through the QR code on the image, use photos in your phone settings and scan it with your camera. 

My entry on the map told some of the stories of my family and its history through, Borges and the song Caminito on Buenos Ayres street in Margate. It also might help to explain why my name is Elspeth and, yes, I am from South America. You can follow my entry here:  https://cgeomap.eu/adifferentlens/?nodo=858

I then started again to think about Borges. I knew I was following an interesting path when Sonia Overall through #DistanceDrift on Twitter invited us to choose a book for a little bibliomancy the Sunday before last. 

I had to find a book rather quickly and went to my night table where there was a copy of Allende's House of the Spirits, and then, I spotted Borges.

This is what Umberto Eco wrote printed  on the back cover  of the book: 

"Joyce and Borges. The first designed with words and the second designed with ideas: the original, the one and only World Wide Web. The Real Thing. The rest will remain merely virtual "

This immediately made me consider the connections between words, ideas, and the world wide web where I found my map of The Forbidden City.

I then realized that the clue to my walk was staring at me in the face. As always I had become too literal in my thinking. 

This is how I have chosen to walk with a map of the forbidden city for my winter solstice walk. This of course connects to restrictions and what we are allowed to do or not depending on our circumstances during the present time.

I have included a copy of the map here. Make sure you click on it to see the key. I am very excited about how this will guide me. I will be walking tomorrow at 10.00 am and you can join me on Twitter @ThreadandWord #52more. It would be fab if you would like to try this too or, of course, I would love to see your own response if you are happy to share it with Blake. 

Happy Winter Solstice and Happy Walking!

We have made the longlist! 

Our project “A Different LENS” has been selected for the second round of the Digital Culture Awards in the Digital Storytelling category and we want to say thank you to all who have contributed to Thread and Word throughout 2020/2021. 

We are longlisted in the Digital Storytelling section:

"Use of digital for impactful storytelling to engage audiences. Achieved by the use of one or several connected narratives across digital media platforms with a strong audience-focused voice and story."

We are in good company :

• Chinese Arts Now and Two Temple Place – CAN X Two Temple Place Digital Exhibition and Immersive Performance
• Dante or Die Theatre – User Not Found Video Podcast
• Everything is Music (A collaboration between Crack Magazine and Landmark) – Everything Is Music – a new location-based digital tour for mobile
• Extant – Flight Paths
• 
  Focal Point Gallery and South Essex Homes – Contemporary Elders: Digital Connectivity
• Horniman Museum and Gardens – Afro Historyscapes
• M&C Saatchi x The Commonwealth War Graves Commission – CWGC – War Graves Week
• Manchester International Festival – MIF21 Online
• Rural Media – Rural Media’s Point Of View Project
• The Margate Bookie – A Different LENS
• Wild Rumpus CIC – Sounds of the Forest

We are proud to be included with so many incredible organizations that we admire and look forward to celebrating with you all.

Our project A Different Lens 

This is a collaborative project by twelve artists who co-created an interactive walking digital map of Margate in 2020. Each artist was asked to choose an author who is blind or became visually impaired during their lifetime. The initial project brief asked the artists to respond through a story presented as walks. These are located in Margate, Broadstairs, Ramsgate, and Seasalter in Kent. You can connect with these through a geolocative map.

 The initial project brief design was to create walking experiences that might illustrate how storytelling makes the inaccessible accessible. You can access the map through this link. 

This link takes you to our web page and provides an introduction to the project.

The connection to locative media was initially designed to widen access to the walking experience to enable disabled artists to participate. However, the lockdowns caused by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic meant that the co-creative experience for all contributing artists shifted from being a hybrid experience to a completely digital one.   

Our artists:

Virginia Fitch

James Frost

Phoebe McIndoe

Clare Jackson

Amy Johnson

Amanda Jones

Diana Lane

William Lewis

Jack Lowe

Sonia Overall

Elspeth Penfold

Sara Trillo

Catch up with Bookie events here:Margate Bookie

At Thread and Word, we acknowledge the sustaining impetus of creativity and the renewed interest in the health benefits of walking throughout the challenges of 2020/2021. 

We are grateful for our partnership with Margate Bookie.   

We were at The Ageless Thanet futures Fair last week.

Throughout lockdown, opening up and locking down again Thread and Word artists have been working hard in partnership with The Margate Bookie. 

It has been a rollercoaster ride for us all, and sadly it's not over yet. However, creativity and community projects have sustained us and will keep on doing so. 

Thank you for supporting us!

A Digital Box Set of Creative Walks by Thread and Word

#Walk Create           

I am delighted that Walking Weaves has become a featured gallery resource for walking research, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. This is a fab resource archiving the work of walking artists linked below: 

https://walkcreate.gla.ac.uk/portfolio/walking-weaves-elspeth-penfold/

Walking Weaves is a series of weaves I made during the first lockdown. My initial idea came through Promeneur by Sheila Hicks, a piece I have always loved. Promeneur is a small weaving made on a little portable loom that is made of stretch bars. These were used by Hicks as private expressions or ramblings. Ramblings seems a particularly apt terminology. Hicks has made thousands of these since graduate school. 

I decided to make daily small weaves during this period of self-isolation. These reflected walks I have done walks I missed, imaginary walks, and walks I was looking forward to doing in the future. Each weave was made in the evening and posted on my Instagram page the next day. The postings became a diary as I reflected on the walk that day. I am in the process of uploading their stories on my website:

 https://elspeth-billie-penfold.com/walking-weaves/

Thank you to those of you who followed these postings on Facebook and on Instagram during the first lockdown. Making these each day sustained me during a very testing time. 

You can join the gallery launch #walkcreate on November 3rd. It is free but ticketed on Eventbrite:

 https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/walkcreate-gallery-online-launch-tickets-175439804177

Hope to see you there ! 

 #walking #weavingstories #threadandword #walkcreate

 A Refracted View Workshops to be delivered by Thread and Word at EKM Scrapstore Ramsgate.

 

Thread and Word Walking Events is grateful to have received a micro-grant from Creative Lives. This support is helping us to develop our work for A Refracted View.

For more about this project please visit: https://linktr.ee/ThreadandWord

Through this funding, we are offering  3x workshops at The Scrapstore @EKM in Ramsgate. The funding for the workshops will cover materials from the ScrapStore for up to 10 people.

We will hold these workshops in time for the Margate NOW festival on the 26^th of September where we will be hosting a walk from Arcades to Arcadia with Billie Penfold (Thread and Word) and other artists. The walk will take place, from Margate Station, it includes a walk-through exhibition at The Nayland Rock Hotel before continuing to the sunken gardens in Westbrook. The walk is free but pre-booking is required through: www.margatenow.co.uk 

During the workshops, the participants will be supported to make items for the walk and exhibition: Details of the workshops will follow shortly.

By holding these workshops we hope to bring to life the walking cards and encourage participants to come along to the walk and exhibition. 

After the workshops, we will explore the viewfinders and walking cards in various walking groups for GOLD members. Participants in the workshops will be the ‘experts’ in A Refracted View and can share their insight with their peers.  

You can see a short introduction to our Walking Cards here :

        

   

 Thank you for walking with us Owen Lowery (1968 - 2021)

 

A photo sent by Owen for A Walk with Shrines. Our thoughts are with his wife Jayne at this sad time.

It is with great sadness that I share this piece made with Owen for A Refracted View. Owen has contributed through Thread and Word to our film A Walk with Shrines, the soundscapes Are You Listening and The Listening Post for The  Margate Bookie and Let’s Take a Moment the soundscape for Arts and Minds with Sound Uk and the  LV21. He sent me some wonderful poetry recordings for our latest project @a_refracted_view_ and we made this video. You will be sorely missed Owen but we will continue to love and share your work. Thank you for making our lives a little brighter. 

This publication is made out of public concerns, expressions of grieves, and sympathy. ”We’re saddened to hear of the death of much-loved poet Owen Lowery on Friday 14th May 2021. We’ve published two of Owen’s collections: Otherwise Unchanged in 2010 and Rego Retold in 2015. A third, The Crash Wake Poems, is forthcoming in Autumn 2021…....” @Carcanet  announced the passing of Lowery on social media on 17th, May 2021.

A   Refracted  View                  

This is a project sharing local stories for The Margate Bookie as part of Estuary 2021.

Our focus is sustainability, environmental and social. Our project's ambition is to enact creative practices that move accessibility beyond how people navigate space and to recognise that universal access gives us a strong aesthetic that enriches all of our lives.

Local artists and the members of the Scrap Store @EKM, in Ramsgate, will co-create experiences that engage with their immediate surroundings. We will consider where we live, how we live and how we might live. These stories will be brought to life through A Refracted View.

So, why refracted? 

An image becomes refracted when light travelling in waves hits another medium, like water. This slows down its progress. Its natural inclination is to find the shortest route, diagonally through one medium to another which creates a different image. The most straightforward example of this is to half fill a glass with water and to stand a pencil in it, and then to look at it sideways. The pencil will appear fractured just above the waterline.

Our project, A Refracted View, presents different perspectives, new ways of looking at things. Our ambition is to disrupt socially constructed ideas of normality, excellence, and productivity.

How do we intend to do this?

We will trigger ideas using walking and thinking through craft. We will share our plans with you through regular podcasts. 

We hope to tinker with our imaginations to create new approaches by working together and engaging with our environment. Our materials will be people ( our artists and the East Kent Mencap members), places (Margate, Ramsgate, Broadstairs, Canterbury, Whitstable and Tankerton) and their stories crafted through a creative deck of walking prompts and flags signaling new directions and possibilities.

You can follow us and our podcast :

https://www.facebook.com/ThreadandWord

https://www.estuaryfestival.com/associated-programme.html

Our artists: Sharon Cavalier, Virginia Fitch, Amy Johnson, Diana Lane, Phoebe McIndoe, Sonia Overall, Elspeth Penfold.

 

 Terraqua : River story postings 

'The mind assembles experiences and constructs stories from them" 

As we prepare for  Terraqua I was looking ahead and reminded of The Terminalia Festival 2018. 

Where the land meets the sea........

Each year as part of Terminalia we celebrate the roman god of boundaries Terminus. I thought it would be fun to share these images of our 2018 celebration when a group of us walked with Thread and Word.

We experimented with a little mud walking led by Kate Monson, as we walked. to the boundary of where you can dig for bait at low tide in Seasalter.                     

                            

We walked, knotted ropes, and shared a moment in time.

                                                  and where the sea meets the land ......

 Terraqua creating stories from the riverbed.

 

A Different LENS: 

Terraqua

A Different LENS is a digital map. It uses locative media and literature to explore storytelling. Our materials are people, places, and stories. 

For Terraqua we are bringing you an exploration of estuary locations in Brazil and the UK. This will be uploaded onto our digital map A Different LENS in May 2021 as part of the associated program for Estuary Festival 2021. I am recording our storytelling through this blog and look forward to sharing our experiences with you.

Terraqua Co-creative estuary stories using locative media

Terraqua is a project delivered through Thread and Word a group led by the artist Elspeth ( Billie ) Penfold in Collaboration with the Brazilian artist Carlos Queiroz. The stories from Terraqua will be shared on the web app A Different LENS designed by Cgeomap.eu. You can find our map here:

A Different LENS

For Terraqua we will create new entries uploaded through A Different Lens. It is a collaboration between Kent-based artists and artists in Brazil ( Vitória ). Our co-creators from Brazil are artists and academics from UFES (Federal University of Espirito Santo (Brazil) / Razuras Geografias Marginals (linguagem poetic movimiento). They are responding to the environmental disaster/crime that occurred in 2015 in the city of Mariana (Minas Gerais). It destroyed all the marine life and the biodiversity of the river over almost 700km, reaching its estuary, which is in that city.

We will be supported in our storytelling by the Scrapstore in Ramsgate. Their members from EastKent Mencap will be part of the co-creation and will be making flags using recycled materials from the Scrapstore. These will be created through crafternoons organised by East Kent Mencap. We are hoping to hold a physical exhibition (Covid permitting) of the flags together with binaural recordings of stories contributed by authors who support The Margate Bookie. 

Our ambition is that through juxtaposition and layering, alternative stories and perspectives of the past, present, and future can be unearthed and exposed to a wide audience. We will create locative media experiences that ‘tinker with our locks, thereby putting our inner worlds in contact with the outer world’ (Lucy Frears) 

Terraqua is being created with the generous support of the Margate Bookie, The Work and Play Scrapstore East Kent Mencap with funding from Arts Council England.

You can follow Terraqua on Facebook : @Thread and Word