#slowhunting #zombie #creativepractice #timesofuncertainty 

 GAME CARE 

I was already crying, even before I arrived at the Residency, I didn’t know why I was crying…

…the more I listen to others the more I know I have to make this action and it’s making me feel the need to cry…I am on the verge of tears…I don’t know why…there is a man’s suit in my suitcase…

I felt strongly compelled to unpick the man’s suit, but I wasn’t sure why. Possibly in the same way that walking offers direction in knowing my own thought landscape, perhaps to unpick a man’s suit, becomes a method for reading and tracking a different kind of landscape. Part of my proposal for the residency had been to become accountable within the residency about my creative practice, but often speaking words out loud in the company of others, brings new revelations, one can never really know what the outcome will be. After I had given my talk to the group it became clear to me why I had the suit with me. I am reminded of the book ‘The body keeps the score: Brain, Mind and Body in the Healing of Trauma’ by Bessel Van Der Kolk. My creative practice works with my aging neurodivergent body, I walk; I need to walk.

I hope to draw a link between the activity of walking and the process of 

unpicking the stitches of a garment. This man’s suit is so tightly stitched, it divides into 4 parts, the inner linings, the outer exterior shell, the trousers, and the pockets, which become a dysfunctional fascia of impenetrable seams, the sum of parts held together by layers of fragile interfacings and a soft heap of vulnerable blue cotton threads; a readymade off the peg, M&S man’s suit. Between the suit’s linings and interfacings, a series of studies of this man’s suit reveal a secret landscape with tailored cuts and padded layers that opens up the question: What is a man?  Following the hidden tightly stitched pathway of seams with my unpicker, I was reminded of our walk along the animal trail, walking from forest to sea, closely observing the dark thicket and undergrowth, we watched for fallen layers, and breaks in the foliage, as indicators of animal tracks. Eventually we arrived at a clearing in the landscape that was punctuated by various gamecare lookout huts, some measuring 1.5 metres squared. Inside I found a car battery, and a large black executive swivel chair.

…A combination of walking the wild and secret paths and the experience of engaging mind and body slowly, slowly thinking, slowly undoing…there are things we do not always know about ourselves…

I always walked because my life depended upon it, needing both escape and arrival in one breath, that’s the nature of my beast. I walk alone, solitary; very much in a zombie-like state…sorry for my silence…I need to walk and my thinking does not function; I am not present, I am not here, I don’t know anything until I have taken a walk. Who can improve on Rebecca Solnit’s observations?  “walking is reading…”  in her book Wanderlust: A History of Walking, or Carl Lavery’s ‘Interruption’ in the handbook “Ways to Wander “ by Qualmann and Hind “I walk in order to think, to engage in a kind of embodied writing…” (I am a trainspotter; an anorak; I love reading about walking).

I knew that I would be inviting my mother to walk with me on Ami’s walk. Emoji Ami’s writing…”Suriashi translates as creeping/rubbing/sliding foot…[it] involves the whole body…our most important audiences are our ancestors, and that we should lean back in space and through time to acknowledge them…” “A body can house knowledge from people who have passed away. Suriashi is a repeatable construction that holds ‘presence’ from the ‘past’.” 

The opportunity to walk in Suriashi* during the BKN residency, revealed a similarity to the kind of steps a person might take, to keep themselves safe, in the face of intimidation and aggression. In order to stay safe, one may choose to become less, smaller, slower, quieter, contained. As a ptsd survivor, and a mind and body that was compelled to become silent and small for safety’s sake, the remaining residue of the trauma’s event exists within my creative practice. My feeling is that between what the eye has seen and the extremities hold, my walking practice brings me into a clearing.

…I feel overwhelmed and ashamed that I need to shut myself away in my studio to methodically unpick a man’s suit…

The action of cutting through stitch and cloth to liberate the little seams below, becomes compulsively rewarding, in the same way that putting one foot down in front of the other to walk, releases the memory and imagination for thinking, both walking and unpicking become strangely satisfying in their speculative processes.

Note from Curators: AiR BKN in northern Stockholm archipelago was the site for WAP/Walking As Practice. For October-November 2023 we invited over 20 artists (Swedish and international to join us in order to establish a network of practitioners and by this establish a site for walking artists. The core of the program is sharing and learning from each other's practices, and possibly inspiring new collaborations. We are currently working on co-developing an exposition with the artists to share with a larger circle by facilitating Research Catalog as a platform. Anna Viola Hallberg & Ami Skånberg - https://bjorkokonstnod.se/bergbio