'Listening' sketchbook drawing 

'A Walk'  sketchbook drawing.

"Are You Listening? "

A circular walk that will offer the opportunity for us to consider our relationship with the environment, through small site specific interventions, poetry readings from the ecopoetics archive and a meditative knotting of ropes.

Knots a discussion , Margate

A walk in Battersea Park with slow listening for The Chelsea Fringe

Pump House Gallery

The Pump House Gallery situated beside a lake in Battersea Park

on May 26th

at 2pm
meet at Pump House Gallery

 

I have been inviting community groups,  artists, friends  and writers to participate in the walk Are you Listening? through the arts group I established in 2016,  Thread and Word . 

Thread and Word is a walking practice that uses site and poetry to reflect on notions of time and timelessness, conscouisness, memory and rhythm through sited readings, documentary evidence and performative interventions. 

Participants who collaborate in the walks with Thread and Word are encouraged to record their experience through a menemonic system of knots in ropes.

We have some wonderful writers and artists contributing to 'Are you Listening?' including work by:

Battersea park , photo Elspeth Penfold

 Owen Lowery Owen Lowery
 Billie Penfold  Elspeth - Billie- Penfold
 Julia Riddiouch Julia Riddiough
 Susan Sciama.  Susan Sciama


There are also contributions by friends and established walkers with Thread and Word, including, Virginia Fitch and Laura Shawyer.


These contributions of  poetry and small interventions will invite us to listen carefully to the world around us.

Lucy Claire sitting in the sun waiting

An Invitation to bring sounds on a walk - As we walk we  will be creatively recording a walking soundscape with Lucy Claire.

We are inviting participants to bring a sound ( recorded on a smartphone )  to the walk.  The artist and composer Lucy Claire   Lucy Claire is collaborating with us to record a soundscape of the walk. These sounds will be overlayed with sounds from the walk to create a sound piece which you will be able to access online.

If you sign up on eventbrite you will receive more details about this.

Although free numbers are limited  and  Ticketed https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/are-you-listening-listen-to-the-river-tickets-58716992104

We have been adding the layers to our thinking about this walk through Flags.

"Flags after all are the prototype of political textiles"
(Fray: Art and Textile Politics

Bryan-wilson, Julia)

Aflag by Gillian Upton

 Flags made by Jane Bull who volunteers at The Work and Play Scrastore South London

Jane Bull , Gillian Upton and Ann Waterston are three of the volunteers at TheWork and Play Scrapstore who since March have been making flags using materials from the Scrapstore . These flags will be on display at Hazelfest a community event organised by the Work and Play Scrapstore for The Wandsworth Arts Fringe on May 19th . We will  also be flying these flags on our walk.






We look forward towelcoming you on this walk.







This walk  has been supported by The Work and Play Scrapstore South London, The Chelsea Fringe , Pump House Gallery and the Enable Leisure and Culture Team at Wandsworth Council.

Note: This project takes its inspiration from Adam Chodzco’s Ghost and a performance piece by the Chilean artist Cecilia Vicuña, Listen to the River. Cecilia Vicuña performed Listen to the River by the shores of The Mapocho river in Chile during a drought. Her work references climate change, the need to respect the environment as a living creative force and the responsibility we all carry in us to look, think about and consider our relationship to the natural world around us.

Originally made for the 2010 Whitstable Biennial, Ghost by Adam Chodzco is a kayak; a sculpture as the ves- sel, a coffin, a bed and a camera rig. Measuring 22ft in length Ghost was created to accommodate a rower in the back and a passenger at the front. Separated from the rower by a dome in the deck of the kayak, the passenger lies flat in the vessel– at the level of the water – with their head slightly raised. This viewpoint offers a unique perspective of the river and its banks, causing the passenger to consider their relationship with the surrounding landscape.