Ways to Wander: Walk No. 9 - Walk With Me

I recently contacted Dr. Blake Morris of the Walking Artist Network (WAN) who is investigating the walks featured in the wonderful book 'Ways to Wander' by Clare Qualmann and Claire Hind as part of his practice-based research (Blake also contributed one of the walks in the book - No.28). He plans to walk all of the 54 various walks in the book, one each week and I expressed my interest in participating in one of them.

 

The book can be purchased here:  https://www.triarchypress.net/waystowander.html

Blake invited me to join him for walk No. 9 - 'Walk with me' by Helen Frosi (soundfjord) on March 3, 2018. The plan was for Blake and Marina White Raven to walk in London while simultaneous walks were taking place in Spain (by Elia Cervera Bravo and Amery Kessler) and Hong Kong (which is where I come in). 

As we walked, we would be able to write comments and poetic reflections that follow the theme of the original walk, and post them onto twitter, tagging the others so that there would be an exchange of comments during the walk.. 

The time difference between London and Hong Kong is 8 hours so in order for this to work I conducted my walk earlier in the day and scheduled my posts using the hootsuite app. Each of my posts were scheduled to be online later in the day, during the period when the others were walking.

The event lasted around 90 minutes and as I walked, besides posting photographs with accompanying comments, I also made sound recordings and collected colours using the citypalette app.

Once all data from the day had been collected by Blake, he consolidated much of it into the next episode of his overall project. Walk No. 9 had been written in the form of a poem and in response Blake managed to combine several of the exchanged comments into another poem. 

The two poems are seen here, the pink background (named by Blake 'Sickly Sky') was one of the colours collected by him during the walk.

  

   Blake's walk poem

                                        Walk with me by                                   

    Helen Frosi (SoundFjord)

(text distorted due to the photograph)

 As Blake investigates each walk, he completes a card reference for each one and posts it on his blog (links here and here)

Blake's reference card for the walk

Here are the photographs I posted onto Twitter along with the accompanying comments:

1/11 'A good beginning, the delayed Chinese New year peach blossom blooms today'

2/11 'Gateway leads to a desolate house, I move on...'

3/11 'These days even the trees are restless, some of them uproot themselves and leave...'

4/11 'Passing the little Temple, from now on I will try to stay within sight of the sea, the sound of the waves is comforting.'

5/11 'The line between the sea and the land, why do I feel so comfortable being close to the edge of something?...'

6/11 'The raised pathway makes me feel as though I am on a catwalk, but the only audience I see are birds...'

7/11 'An entrance to a seminary. Inside, nature is groomed into formal rows while outside lies chaos, and beauty.'

8/11 'A fallen tree but this is not an end. For nature this is another beginning.'

9/11 'A gentle slope, not a climb...an inclination!'

10/11 'Returning now to the streets where I began my walk I find a painting created by nature - the finest, most honest artist.'

I also made four sound recordings during the walk:

1. Cantonese radio playing outside the Temple, birds singing in the background. 

2. Birds singing, radio faintly heard in the background.

3. Soloist bird along with bird chorus accompaniment.

4. Young boy playing basketball alone in a playground at the end of my walk.

Sound files here:






Sounds edited together with accompanying images here:

...and the colour palette I compiled during the 90 minutes:

11/11 'Colours collected during my walk.' 3 March 2018.

'Releasing Sisyphus' Performance Art piece

Luckily the day chosen for the performance (2nd July 2016) was overcast (taking some of the sting out of the sun) although it was still incredibly humid.  

On the artificially created beach at Repulse Bay (on the south side of Hong Kong Island) I stood with my back to the hills and faced the sea. In my hands I carried two different materials: water and sand. Slowly I allowed the sand to filter through my fingers down onto the beach after which I slowly poured the water into the sea. Both the sand and water I had dispensed immediately merged with the rest and became imperceptible. Dropping sand back to the beach, pouring water back to the sea, both of these ritualistic actions attempted to restore order and sought some kind of equilibrium.

​After a few moments I turned and began my walk towards the hills behind me. South Bay Road runs up towards the hills and then at a junction it curls away to the left, I turned right and made my way up South Bay Close, past the International School on the right until the road ended in a cul-de-sac. Steps on the left led to the trail that winds up through the trees. This trail has not been manicured and destroyed (or 'improved' as the local authorities term it) making the journey a very pleasant one, winding between boulders and roots under a thick canopy of leaves and branches.

​Once I reached the catch-water at Tsz Kong Au I crossed Tsz Kong Bridge and began the climb up the first of the twins, the two peaks that rise above Repulse Bay. My goal was to reach the top of the first twin. The initial part of the climb alternates between trail and concrete steps but after a short while the path becomes pure concrete steps leading up as far as one can see. Every so often I stopped to take a sip of water and adjust my back-pack, which contained the stones that I would use to build a cairn on the summit. 

​As I climbed the steps I thought of Sisyphus and his endless toil, pushing the boulder to the top of the hill only to have it immediately roll back to the bottom. Sisyphus would calmly make his way back down the steps to begin his labour once more. He seemingly had no escape from this god-given punishment and yet he managed to find solace in the regularity of his work. Everything was laid out for him, he had no need to plan, to calculate anything or to wonder at the outcome. Everything was pre-planned and predictable. As he descended the hill he knew what was expected and how he would re-accomplish the feat. In some ways he had found his own way to escape the torture, but I wished to free him from this torment. 

​At the summit I built a small cairn by the side of the trail, modest so as not to attract attention and I also planted two small shrubs that would hopefully thrive and help to keep the stones firmly fixed in their position. This would keep them in place and prevent them rolling down the hill. The shrubs had grown from seeds left by wild birds in a disused plant pot on my balcony and they therefore seemed to already possess a certain poetry and were regarded as extremely appropriate for this performance. Sisyphus would be free at last. He would be able to apply his physical strength and his strength of character in other pursuits of his own choosing. After thousands of years I may finally have released Sisyphus.