to the project
This incarnation of the Walking Project was completed in May 2006. The blog and the sidebar links document some of the work we did from February 2003 - May 2006
We continue to create conversational spaces through projects that use collaborative storytelling, mapping and artmaking to explore shared experience across culture and geography, framed through everyday actions like walking.
Thanks for checking in on the Walking Project
a story from Michigan Public Radio
Walking on the Moon and Canaan Land (overlapping)
Sizohamba
Follow the Drinking Gourd
Detroit Sounds
Bawo Thixo Somandla
the walking project included a lobby installation with shoes, photos, words, prints, video and music
check out the next posting for some of the stories and reflections about walking from people who saw the show or visited the installation
audience reflectionDuring the run of the Walking Project in March and April, we left a couple of sketchbooks in the lobby, as part of the installation, for audience members and passers-by to contribute their thoughts and experiences about walking and about the project.
Photos of the sketchbook pages
Here are a few of the contributions, in no particular order. If they're not signed, it's because they were written anonymously. (If your name is here and we've spelled it wrong, our apologies. Please let us know!)
4-1-06
When I was a child and walked to school, I would leave the house
around 7:45. About 45 minutes after my date would leave to walk to the
bus stop ¼ mile up the road. On days when there was a fresh dusting of
new snow, I could see my father’s footsteps. His were the first and so
far the only footsteps I could see. I would stretch my legs to step in
the prints of his footsteps until I had to turn the corner to finish my
walk to school. – Kay Yourist
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Every day at 7:30 am regardless of weather – the shelters are emptied – and people walk.
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3-31-06
My father is/was from Aquascalientes, Mexico - “the Felon” (according to present day U.S. Immigration laws). {He} would walk from Aquascalientes to San Juan. They would usually walk in the night when it was cooler and could be guided by the stars. It was a religious pilgrimage but I always felt it was more than that. He spoke of it often and he walked a few times. He also walked it with people. Sometimes he walked with friends and sometimes he walked with siblings and always something happened. It has made me want to do this walk. I don’t know why.
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When I visited Aunt Katie up on our Rez in N. British Columbia in the village of Gingolx on the Hass River, I took a walk with my 14-year old daughter & 12-year old neice. We vaguely remembered a path to go up a creek. We got as far as the salmon hatchery and couldn’t located the path. A Grandpa, his son & grandson came along with fishing gear, so we asked if we could walk along with them. “Sure,” he said with a twinkle in his eyes, “but if we see bears you girls are on your own.”
- Joyce Higadoosk
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Leola couldn’t walk – she lived in a basement apartment off of
Milwaukee – we visited her once a week – brought her beer & bread
& cigarettes – she had no teeth – but she could iron – she would
iron across her world of all she owned. And we would walk over from
the store on Brush & see that she was still ok.
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Some walk
Some wheel
Some limp lovely –
All dance forward if our arms stay open.
www.disabledandproud.com
www.danceofpartnerships.com
Continue reading "audience reflection" »
from "walking on the moon" - a scene from the production of the walking project
(photo by tyler micoleau)
second and fourth graders from northside school in ann arbor worked in teams to walk and map the playground. after several walks with specific interventions and interruptions designed to help walkers see familiar spaces in new ways, they came inside and collaboratively drew the walk. later, fourth graders interviewed second graders about their experiences on the playground, and they're writing stories. and the second graders are creating a mural-sized map of the playground. and the teachers are making a video of the whole process.
from a walking & mapping the playground workshop with second and fourth graders
from the march 4th cass corridor walk
found along the detroit river. detroit was a stopping point for slaves escaping to canada. the walking project performance includes a section about the following the path north to freedom - another take on desire lines.....
from the rivertown walk, february 25
Gearing up for the start of our final Detroit residency. Omri, Jabu, Gugu & Ndu arrive next Saturday, and our first walk around the block is the same day. Keep coming back to this line in Rebecca Solnit's Wanderlust...
We are eternally perplexed by how to move toward forgiveness or healing or truth, but we know how to walk from here to there, however arduous the journey.
- Erika
getting ready for our walks.....
BY JOCELYN PARKER
FREE PRESS BUSINESS WRITER
City and state officials are baffled as to who Detroit rates as the most dangerous for pedestrians among large U.S. cities in a federal government study to be released today. "Obviously, these are tragic numbers, ones that all traffic safety and law enforcement officials need to act on to promote safety in the future," said Liz Boyd, a spokeswoman for Gov. Jennifer Granholm.
Continue reading "Detroit tops U.S. big cities in rate of pedestrian deaths" »
Hilary's installation in Bristol, England included map collages, shoe polishing, foot massage, personal pathmaking with painted shoe soles (think finger painting with your feet!), and a looping slide show of the walks we've taken.
Plus the ever-popular magic carpet bike.
Photos from the Woodlands Primary School walk, all taken by the students, are online now. Click on the photo to take a look.
click on the photo to view all the pics from two amazing walks and afternoons with the Hadebes.
A project about walking, a walking project: what can it possibly be? Here is my body, it does what it does, it moves or does not move. Ask why I move where I move, why I move how I move, ask why I walk here and not there, why I walk like this and not that, bind thought to doing and then, only then, identify your dis-ease. A project about walking between countries, in your own country, in your own skin and somebody else’s shoes is like a virus. Ikhambi lokwelapha ingqondo ekhahlamezikile. Ikhmabi lokwelapha umzimba ohlukumezikile. Ikhambi lokwelapha umoya oxovekile. It gets into your body, and perhaps you get a slight cold. Or maybe the germ multiplies, the seed refuses to sleep. Ideas split and double, the dis-ease at your splitting thoughts leaves the landscape of your body ravaged. Angisho lemithi, nodokotela benu. Laba abahlambalaza ‘maphepeni, emisakazweni, koma-mabonakude. Leli lingumongo waphakade, ilelei okwade labakhona kuleli elimagade, ukuhamba, ukuhamba hamba hamba.
Continue reading "a virus and search for the cure (morwenna and bheki)" »
Zinyawo zami nemicondo yami (my feet and my tiny legs)
I walk everywhere but not anywhere/ sometimes my everywhere grows to be
anywhere but still I walk without knowing/ sometimes I walk protected by
my masculinity sometimes it goes away or some choose to ignore it/ then
I'm as vulnerable as the next sister/
I love my sisters/ sometimes I worry when I see them walking alone at
night/ sometimes I can tell they know by their suspicious looks that
they give me and by the pace they walk behind or in front of me/
Hazel (in hat) during our walk in Elanskopf last week.
Walking in the 'Berg [the Drakensberg Mountains of KwaZulu-Natal]
Well-being seeps upward, astonishing, unexpected, a blessing
gratefully accepted. The petals of my soul stir, haltingly begin
to open, search for the sun, its merciful warmth assuaging grief.
morwenna (left) with Ndu (ctr) and Bheki
Wander
Lust.
Footstep by footstep
Pathmaking, heart.
Desire is movement. Sharks must
Move
Constantly else they will die.
When I was first asked to join The Walking Project, I immediately thought of the Montgomery Bus Boycotts tht lasted from December of 1955 until November of 1956. The fact that people walked to school, to work and to town, rather than ride the bus, in order to protest for integration of public transportation was the first thing that came to mind for me.
It made me think of how that movement which was inspired by other international movements and leaders also inspired movements and leaders throughout the U.S. and the world.
Ndu Hadebe, a new cast member, invited us to his home in the rural area of Elandskopf, where we met his family and walked along some of the paths he travels regularly. Along the way we were treated to an impromptu performance by some neighbors. At the end of the day, some of the members of Stars of Freedom, Ndu's singing group, sang for us. Many of the songs were led by Gugu Hadebe, Ndu's sister, and her performance was so compelling that we asked her to join the cast and she's just begun working with us!
I arrive during the last week of rehearsals, Morwenna and Omri have been here a number of weeks before me and seem quite at home as I struggle to orientate myself and battle jetlag. Detroit is quite literally amazing. Driving in from Ann Arbor there are miles and miles of suburbs spreading over a very flat landscape, treed, spring flowers, but essentially urban sprawl. As we near Detroit itself there seems to be a small clump of high-rise buildings in the centre, which Tyler kindly drives me through. On closer viewing there is some amazing art-deco architecture, beautiful buildings and many others boarded up and decaying. We drive to the Furniture Factory just beyond the city centre. The roads are immensely wide, five to seven cars could easily proceed alongside each other but the streets are deserted. A few pedestrians walk the pavements or take short-cuts through vacant lots. I notice the beautiful old houses with wooden verandahs and staircases, trees and creepers, daylilies everywhere. There is the most wonderful sense of growth and greenery, it is quiet, no urban racket - nature is slowly making her way back.
Continue reading "hazel reflects on the detroit residency" »
