Can you say ‘walking art’ in Esperanto?

I'll go out on a limb and posit there's a good chance you once read Douglas Adams' The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy. In it, there's the Babel Fish, a little fish that you let swim in your ear, which immediately translates every language, from anywhere in the universe, to your own.

During the first dot-com bubble, before Google Translate hit the scene, a service called, what else, Babel Fish, tried to accomplish what we are now so familiar with, instantaneous translations. Several mobile phone apps now allow for two-way discussions between humans, each speaking in their own language, and you can use your phone to take an image of a menu, or a sign, in many languages, which are then translated, within the image you took, in to a language you can read.
Indeed, there's no real technical reason why we can't have a near-equivalent of a Babel Fish right now. And though Elon Musk's credibility, with his mismanagement of Twitter, has greatly diminished over the last few months, it still is likely that we will see direct brain implants within most our lifetimes, meaning that we won't have an actual fish swimming in our ears, soon, but instead a plug, or wireless connection, directly beaming into our brains.

All this to say that, in a not so distant past, when many were envisioning the rise of the global working classes and the establishment of a universal brotherhood of man, these same visionaries also realised this brotherhood needed a way to talk to each other in a shared language.

L. L. Zamenhof was born in the Russian Empire, but in what is now Poland, and developed what is now the most widely spoken constructed language. The language became known as Esperanto, 'one who hopes' (for a better world, and world peace), and today is considered to have around 100.000 speakers, with some estimates as high as 180.000.

A few weeks ago, I teased that we had a big announcement on the horizon. Well, as I'm sure you were shivering with... anticipation, the wait is over.

We're very excited to announce that, from this year onwards, walk · listen · create will host a second award. Besides the Sound Walk September Awards, we will now also recognise walking art that is not soundwalking art.

Submissions are open from today until the last day of October for the Marŝarto Awards 2023.

The what now? 'Marŝarto' means 'walking art' in... you guessed correctly, Esperanto.

Walking, as a practice, is an individualistic experience, but also has the power to create a shared understanding of reality by emphasising the unique interpretations that we, as individuals, give to similar stimuli.
In other words, 'walking', as a process, has the ability to bring us closer together. Establishing an award that recognises this, is well suited to be named in a language that was designed to attempt to achieve exactly that.

As of today, you will find references to the Marŝarto Awards sprinkled throughout our website. As I mentioned, it's already possible to submit your walking pieces for these awards, through our improved submission system.
In the next few weeks, you'll see more elaborate announcements appear on our website, which will cover our broadened focus.

The Marŝarto Awards will run from November 1 to October 31, but for this first edition, all walking art (that is not soundwalking art) that was created during 2022 and up to October 31, 2023, can be submitted.

The one thing I'll add, here, is that, besides the experienced Grand Jury for the Sound Walk September Awards, we now also have a fantastic Grand Jury for the Marŝarto Awards, as well as an expanded Online Jury which will put together the shortlist for both of these awards.
More on all of these soon, but don't hesitate to take a look at what wonderful artists make up the juries. And, do submit your work! I can't wait!

I'm excited. I hope you are, too.

For now, keep walking!

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