Way Beyond

There’s a lot of walking arts activity taking place in New South Wales Australia this week as the newly formed Australian Walking Artists prepare for their first exhibition.

From the kernel of an idea, prompted by a meeting of a handful of Australian walking artists at Prespes, Greece in July, Molly Wagner and latterly, Kim Goldsmith have brought together more than 40 walking artists from across Australia to form a network, half of whom have submitted work for an exhibition at Articulate Space in Leichhardt.

Kim Goldsmith also volunteered as a judge for Neighbourhood Narratives, our non-fiction writing for competition, and she has introduced us to Orana Arts who, this week became our second sponsor of the competition, offering up a cash prize for a resident of regional New South Wales writing about places there. And we’ve already had a submission from someone in the region!

Now is the time when I start to think about where we might go for a walk as part of a holiday. Walking holidays have grown significantly in popularity since Covid when a whole tranche of people discovered what pleasure was to be had, in getting about on foot.

I've just been reading an article by Tim Moore in the Financial Times travel section, in which he talks about Hiking the Machu Picchu trail of Tenerife. Tenerife is apparently, host to the highest summit in Spain, and although one thinks of winter sun, beach holidays, offers beautiful, wild countryside as well as barren volcanic landscapes. I’ve recently been chatting to William Sharpe the author of The Art of Walking a History in 100 images who will be a café guest for us at the end of April. Last year he went on a walking holiday with his partner in Albania, about the same time that we walking artists were encountering each other in Prespes. He went on an organised guided walk by a local company and said that it was a fantastic experience, but then he admitted that in the previous two weeks, he’d also walked the Corfu Trail, which sounds equally fabulous.

This got me thinking about the World Trails Network who are now publicising their events on walk · listen · create. They are an international collaboration of trail makers and trail maintenance professionals, seeking to make trails more sustainable, and I remember reading earlier this year, Robert Moor's excellent book On Trails, of which I highly recommend.

Back in December Claudia Zeiske entertained us with a very interesting discussion about her Slow Coast 500 walk along the east coast of Scotland, commenting on how the creation of the West Highland Way had actually generated such numbers of walking tourists, that they are not only degrading the environment through which the trail passes, but is also becoming a nuisance to the locals.

She’ll be talking with Tim Ingold at an in person event in Edinburgh this week. Many people have asked whether that’s going to be recorded so they can listen or watch later. The good news for you is that much of what she will cover, is included in the Café, the video recording is available now. Was I being naive when way back in the 1990s, I wrote a booklet for the Scottish Tourist Board on how accommodation providers could promote sustainable tourism in more remote places, by welcoming walkers and cyclists?

At the end of this month, we have the second Walking in America - conversations with writers hosted by Ann de Forest, and this time she’s brought together, three authors and an editor from a recent publication in The Hopkins Review in which more than 20 writers contributed essays about walking.

So there’s lots to look forward to with walking writing and of course, for Walking art to, as in the next few days the winner of the inaugural Marŝarto Award will be announced.

And finally, can you help us increase our audience for this newsletter and across social media? We are going to try to double our readership in the next 12 months, so if you can volunteer a few hours or days we would love to hear from you, and if time is short, then please do forward this newsletter to friends or colleagues and encourage them to sign up. We’ve got lots of things happening the next year, that will appeal to a broad audience of fellow walkers.

Looking forward to seeing you online and at some point meeting in person on the trail.

Featured image: Linda Knight (Victoria), Pauliina Ratio, Anna Vladimirova, Marina Pliushchik, Kristina Vitek, Meiän Mettä: citizen cartography walks. Sanginjoki forest, Finland, 2023, digital photograph (all artists credited), 593 x 840 mm.

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