A Walk for Terminalia with Thread and Word. 23/02/2019 

(for more about this walk please see previous blog postings.)

‘sumak kawsay’*

This photo taken at Reculver , during a walk on Wednesday.

 A Playlist

Woody Guthrie - Waiting at the Gate : youtube.com. https://binged.it/2GQ2FJQ 

Inti Illimani :   youtube.com. https://binged.it/2Scyb6z

Carlos Valera: Muros y Puertas: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-10VQQtAnw

Jackson Brown: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwT0MI_tlMY

Nina Simone : Here Comes the Sun. https://youtu.be/NJiC6cA3dUA

Cat Stevens/Yusuf “where do the children play” 
where do the children play
(contributed by Virginia Fitch)

Happy listening!

http://www.elspeth-billie-penfold.com 

Here a pencil weave drawing of part of our route 

* Sumak kasway (quechua) “ ‘goodliving’ and interculturality….centred in the indigenous world view ,.. it aims to overcome the Western model of individualist thought and the dominant concept of development centred in the market” Interview with Pablo Sanaguano, Maria Fernandez Cartagena

A Walk for Terminalia with Thread and Word - Some context for our walk .

This walk takes place February 23rd in Seasalter, on the Kent Coast.

http://terminaliafestival.org you can check the festival out and find us under events.

Inti

As I prepare for this walk with Thread and Word there are some  connections that I have made over the last week that have contributed to my thinking about this walk that I thought would be worth sharing.  I mostly carry these ideas around in my head and have found that writing these ideas down does clarify my thinking as I try to explain them. Although I have to admit some ideas are a leap of faith and associated with feelings you carry in your heart as you will no doubt gather if you read this.



The first has been connecting my thoughts about the solar panels proposed for the landscape in Seasalter with the  Inca deity' s  Inti, the God of the Sun, and Mama Pacha, Mother Earth . I was born in Bolivia and grew up in Lima, Peru. At school we learnt about the Incas probably in the same way as children in England learn about the Romans. So I tend to draw on this bank of knowledge using the mythic method, a method identified  by TS Eliot and James Joyce, which draws on myth from the past as a way to help us connect with the present.

Today I walked in Seasalter and thought about how important it is to feel this connection with the earth and the sun. In Peru there are no figures for Mother Earth (Mama Pacha), aside for those made to sell to tourists, as Andean people believe she can be felt in every place, at every moment and in every living being.  Where do the thousands of solar panels proposed for this site fit in to this scenario, I wonder?

Andean people still believe strongly in the importance of living in harmony with nature and not taking too much from Pachamama. How will Mother Earth change if the rays of the sun are diverted from the land and harnessed as energy ? I am not against a greener energy but as I walked I wondered how much energy do we really need? Should we reflect on our role as consumers ? Where are the boundaries to our consumption?




There are ten of us walking to celebrate Terminus, the Roman God of boundaries. We will be reading poetry, listening to music and meditatively knotting ropes. I have made the ropes for this walk by hand in my studio , they are in the photo on the right.

This practice also derives from my knowledge of the Incas and the records that they kept through a system of knotted ropes called Quipus. To this day the village members, who are trained in their roles as  Quipucamayocs in villages in the Andes, are able to read the knotted ropes that our text based society is unable to translate. Although there are theories and explanations offered by researchers and anthropologists there is still a mystery in the artefacts which I love.







We will reflect on our thoughts at the end of the walk when we attach our knotted ropes to our Vara ( Pole) . Below is the Vara I have made for this walk with a strap that I have woven on an inkle loom . The weave is symbolic of the land we will be walking around and I will explain this on the walk.

A Vara for Terminalia

This Vara (Pole) will then join the collection of 12 Varas in my studio.I have been leading walks and assembling these Varas since 2015.  Each Vara holds the ropes knotted as a record of a particular walk which I have led supported by friends, academics and artists.


I would like to thank all those who are joining me on this walk and giving their support in making the Vara contributing to an exchange of ideas, meditative knotting and poetry writing in the pub at the end. This is the first time we will take the Vara on the walk with us and then put the ropes on to the Vara together as a group. I usually take the ropes back to my studio and then assemble it there on my own. I think it will add to the ritual of the walk and am looking forward to seeing how this develops.

I am hoping that our poetry writing will be taking a leaf out of ecopoetics as described by the founder of the ecopoetics journal Dr Jonathan Skinner (Warwick University)  who will be joining us on this walk. We will be locating our poem in and through  the 'site' rather than kinds of 'writing':

"Taking writing out of the classroom, the bookstore and the library even out of the book itself shifting the focus from themes and styles to an institutional critique of green discourse itself  and to an array of practices converging on the oikos, the planet earth that is the only home our species currently knows"(1).

 I'm looking forward to seeing what we come up with.

Looking forward to celebrating Terminalia with you all on Saturday!


(1) https://jacket2.org/commentary/jonathan-skinner

A walk for Terminalia with Thread and Word.

On February 23rd in Seasalter, on the Kent Coast.

http://terminaliafestival.org you can check the festival out and find us under events.

By way of an explanation, we will be celebrating Terminalia with Thread and Word in Seasalter through a walk with poetry readings ( you are welcome to bring a contribution) .

Apart from walking we will engage in the meditative knotting of ropes. I will supply the ropes.



Our intention is to explore the liminal space that surrounds us .


In Seasalter.there is a proposal to cover the area we will be walking with 1.000’s of solar panels as tall as double decker buses . The area we are walking in is shown in the photo on the right.


The word liminal comes from the Latin word limen, meaning threshold – any point or place of entering or beginning.

A liminal space is the time between the ‘what was’ and the ‘next.’ It is a place of transition, waiting, and not knowing. Liminal space is where all transformation takes place, if we learn to wait and let it form us.

The act of walking and knotting ropes will allow us to think about where we are now and how our world might be transformed .











We will also be reading some poetry and you are welcome to bring your own contribution if you so wish.

We will document this experience on a Vara or pole , as shown in the photo on the left.

I have made the weave for our Terminalia Vara . Seen on the right. and it is an attempt to map the terrain. (I will give you my account of this on the day).


We will be attaching our ropes to the Vara at the end of the walk ( in the pub 😊) .We will also use the ropes and the knots to order our thoughts in an attempt to write a poem, also in the pub!

Looking forward to walking and sharing this experience with some of you on February 23rd.

The walk is free but numbers will be limited and you are advised to book.
For tickets: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/a-walk-with-thread-and-word-for-terminalia-tickets-55854732007

Thread and Word - A Walk with Shrines 

At The Margate Bookie                               

Film maker Anna Bowman takes some time out from a busy filming schedule in Yorkshire to reflect on her experience of filming A Walk with Shrines in Margate.

"A WALK WITH SHRINES  - Anna Bowman

Earlier this year, when I interviewed Elspeth (Billie) as part of a short documentary about the exhibition Memories…There’s Always Tomorrow at the Gallery, St Pancras Hospital, in London she asked me if I’d be interested in filming a walk. I said yes, having no idea what it would involve.

It turned out to be an extraordinary experience Nine artists’ beautiful ofrendas (offerings) formed temporary shrines to stories and poems by four visiting authors at the Margate Bookie. The film celebrated the meditative walk Elspeth devised and led, with artists and other participants processing along the sea front, up the cliffs, to the Winter Garden and the War Memorial, then back to the Turner Contemporary Gallery.

Filming was a challenge.  My work is collaborative and usually filmed in galleries or at events where I have a quite a bit of control over what I film. Here there were the elements in full force – crashing waves, howling wind, some brilliant sun – all the seasons in Margate in two days. 

It was a wonderful collaboration with Elspeth and the artists who made the ofrendas. I was touched by everyone’s generosity, as some interviews and readings needed to be re-recorded as the sound of wind was over powering.  I asked Anastasia if she would film some of the walkers on 29^th, so we could see them from in front as well as from behind. I would love to collaborate with her in the future, if the opportunity arises."

A Walk with Shrines was part of Margate Festival 2018:Now, which was funded by Turner Contemporary, Dreamland and Kent County Council.

WITH THANKS TO ANASTASIA MILLER FOR PHOTOGRAPHY.

A LINK BELOW. TO Anna Bowman's VIDEO WITH FOOTAGE OF PROCESSIONAL WALKING AND OF OFFERINGS CREATED TO FORM A LITURGY TO FOUR BOOKS BY FOUR AUTHORS AT THE AUTUMN BOOKIE IN MARGATE.



A WALK WITH SHRINES by Thread and Word from Anna Bowman on Vimeo.

Thread and Word - A Walk with Shrines 

at The Margate Bookie 

Taking time to reflect with Sonia Overall 

Sonia teaches on the Creative and Professional Writing programme at Canterbury Christchurch University. Sonia writes fiction and poetry and explores experimental creative forms.

Sonia offered us a bell to ring in the Ofrendas and Ofrendas to the four authors and their books.

She also created a processional walk in the shape of a Labyrinth of exactly 100 steps around the War Memorial at Trinity Square in Margate.

This performance as a shrine to Philip Whitely's  book 'Marching on Together'.

  

Sonia's reflections:

"Finding new ways of expressing and accessing written ideas is crucial to my work. I devour and produce reams of text every day both as a writer, a tutor of creative writing, and a critical reader – and it can be easy to deal with words as just so much information to be processed. Walking with Shrines was a valuable opportunity to take time thinking about, and respond creatively to, the written word.



I use walking in my practice, so bringing books and walking together seems logical. It’s good to be reminded of the physicality of the book too. Creating objects that relate to a writer’s ideas, and placing them in a shrine, forms a tangible link between thought and place.

Philip Whiteley  - 'Marching on Together'

A writer has created a poem or a passage of prose, has summed up ideas in titles or chapter headings, and committed them to the page.

Waling the Labyrinth

It’s an expression of gratitude for the writer’s work, and for the act of reading. With a project like this, it’s also an expression of the communal acts of reading and walking, of sharing the experience of text and relating it to the landscape.

I’m incredibly grateful to Billie for putting this project together; to the Margate Bookie for hosting it; to the generosity of the authors; to Anna, whose film  articulated our ideas so well; and to my fellow walkers for a rich and interesting experience.

 I would strongly recommend responding to books in this way to all readers: when you are moved by a text, take that text for a walk. 


Take the time to make something you can hold in your hands, however simple or ephemeral, which responds to those thoughts. 

Milagros for Elise Valmorbida's 'Madonna of the Mountains"

Your relationship with the text will deepen, and you will have rooted it to the physical world. What better way to celebrate the power of words? "

(Sonia Overall)

Assisting the assisted - Transitions Poetry by Owen Lowery

Relating to the landscape

a small hoard to 'The Hoarder' by Jess Kidd

Images of Ofrendas (offerings ) made by Sonia Overall with some words as she reflects on the process.

With thanks to Anastasia Miller for photography.

A link below. to the video with footage of processional walking and of offerings created to form a liturgy to four books by four authors at The Autumn Bookie in Margate.

A WALK WITH SHRINES by Thread and Word from Anna Bowman on Vimeo.

In The Winter Gardens, Margate

A Walk with Shrines

'The Hoarder'

by Jess Kidd

Here a final blog on our authors. Last but by no means the least, we responded with offerings to Jess Kidd's  book  published in America as, 'Mr Flood's Last Resort, and in the UK as 'The Hoarder'.

Here is a sample of Ofrendas which were made by artists/makers to be placed at the shrine to Jess Kidd's book.

Maggy Rodd's Journal quilt hoard of buttons and scraps

Elaina Arkeool - Mr Flood as Bluebeard, a bra, copper wire and beard clippings in an extraordinary box, fit for a crime scene!

A Hoard by Sonia Overall, a collection of train and bus tickets over the course of a week in a match box

Sara Trillo an offering of flowers on found ropes in the form of a vase

Virginia Fitch's hoard.

Here some words by Virginia:

'If I was making this offering to a religious shrine – I would first genuflect –
make the sign of the cross –

 and then say a Hail Mary (my go-to prayer to help me focus).
And then present each of my offerings

 – my ofrenda

1.Small copy of Hail Mary prayer.

2. A Small battery-operated statuette of the blessed
 Virgin Mary that illuminates in

    many-hued fluorescent colours!

3. A handmade hanging plaque icon of the Madonna and child 
made out of gold-coloured material

 embellished with multi-coloured and multi-shaped decoration
 – a gift to me from my children. 

4.Pack of Brillo cleaning pads.  One of the early images in 
the book is the vast gothic untidy unkempt

 house of a Hoarder, which has not been cleared in 25 years. 

Maud needed to steel herself with lots of cleaning products.  

I kind of had more of an image of an Andy Warhol box
 but you can’t get those anymore. 

5.Photo of a group of cats – some in poor health.  
There are many cats in Bridlemere, 

Cathal Flood’s mansion of a house.  
I think this group of cats photographed on “Cat Island” in Japan – 

gives a feel for a bunch of near feral cats inhabiting the house, 
all keeping an eye on Maud

 as she goes about her work in the house.

6.Photo of a National Geographic magazine; 
a photo of a Middle Eastern girl 

reminiscent of the Virgin Mary. 
Another early image in the book
 and later referred to

 is the wall made up of hundreds copies
 of National Geographic magazines.This is an unforgettable image. 

7.A photocopy of a collage which I put together
 showing many images of St Dymphna – 

a saint closely associated with Ireland – 
Patron of those with Stress, Anxiety and Mental Health.  

The centre prayer card says in the bottom right hand corner 
This piece of cloth has been touched

 to her relics.  In this collage there are medals, candles, icons, Medieval, statues

 dedicated to this saint who appears frequently 
to Maud Drennan, the protagonist in the book

 along with many other saints who have a strangely contemporary side to them,

 ie smoking a cigarette for instance.  

St Dymphna being the patron saint for Mental Health is appropriate as Hoarding has

 only recently been acknowledged as a MH issue, and treatment is now offered.

************************

I enjoyed this book very much – I found many personal parallels in it.'

Our chosen site in the Winter Gardens 

A Walk with Shrines was part of Margate Festival 2018:Now, 

which was funded by Turner Contemporary, 

Dreamland and Kent County Council.

Here the video of the Ofrendas with  explanations by the artists,
 with thanks to Anna Bowman.
This film was made with the support of Arts Council England

A WALK WITH SHRINES from Anna Bowman on Vimeo.

A Review by Jess Kidd

"I love your introduction Andreas and your reference to
 Orwell and his blazing determination to keep
communicating truthfully. 

The Bookie feels like such a celebration of words 
and art and a bringing together of people.
 And that fundamental idea that art is made by
 both the reader and the author, the viewer and 

the artist, that ultimately it's collaborative. 

When I was small I loved the shrines in Ireland

 (which my family irreverently called 'Roadside Marys'!).

 Holy wells also held a deep fascination for me,

 not just for the legends associated with them, 

but also because of the objects people had left behind.

 I felt each one told its own story, about the ritual of it, 

but also their wishes and intentions. 

Virginia and Billie's readings, Maggy's quilt and 

Sonia's bus tickets I found really touching.

 Sometimes you lose touch with why you write

 in the anxieties of the whole editing process. 

And for me the fundamental reason
 is to connect with people and tell a story.
 I love the way that art can tell that story

 in so many different ways.

Thank you for picking The Hoarder to
 be part of the project

 and a very special festival. 

All best wishes,

Jess  "