ATTENDING WAP24 ARTISTS
Juanma González (se/es)
Jolene Mok (hk)
Cliff Andrade (uk)
John Schuerman (us)
Vincent Stangl (at)
Marina Pugina (ru)
Ami Skånberg (se)
Anna Viola Hallberg (se)
ATTENDING SCHOLAR
Lena Gemzöe (se)
PARTICIPANTS
Sara Landare
Johana Lindblom
Jenny Danielsson
Cecilia von Schantz
PROGRAM
1) walk "Experimental Pilgrimage" with Ami Skånberg, Suriashi
2) walk "Caring Stone Carrying" with Juanma González, pilgrimage
3) walk "Moving Together in a Circle" with John Schuerman (co-curator WAP24 June Edition).
4) Optional continue to Singö or walk Roslagsleden to Älmsta or visit to artist Albert Engström Studio/Museum estate.
CORE INFO
Walking artists: 8
Public walkers:5
Weather: Sun, light wind (@10-16 c)
Date: Tuesday May 21, 2024
Duration: 1/2 or full day
Start: 08:10 Fjällbacka
Arrival: 12:00 Grisslehamn
The walk took place on Väddö in Northern Stockholm Archipelago, Sweden
Other: no injuries, some treas blocked the trail
Public Transportation:
Departure from BKN with bus 636 at 07:17. Change in Älmsta to 637.
Return trip: Grisslehamn färjeläger 15.58
Arrival Älmsta 16.20
Grocery shopping in Älmsta for the dinner
Älmsta Busstation Return towards BKN:17:24
Post walk: Campfire Session at BKN @7 pm.
Program, instigator and navigator: Anna Viola Hallberg
FIELD-NOTES / FRAMEWORK
The Viking Trail - part of the world's first pilgrimage route on sea and land. The route is part of the 1200 km St. Olav Waterway, which runs from Turku - Åland - Grisslehamn - Harg - Älvkarleby and onwards north to Trondheim in Norway. The new trail links three countries and a number of existing trails. The 60 km Viking Trail connects the trails Roslagsleden and Upplandsleden. The Viking Trail* was inaugurated on the Swedish side in Grisslehamn in 2019 and is marked by orange posts with the pilgrimage emblem. It was the first public walk with WAP24. It took place on Väddö in the Northern Stockholm Archipelago. The group followed two overlapping trails: Vikingaleden and Pilgrimsleden St Olav Waterway. The walk took place on a weekday (due to scheduling issues) wich is perhaps not the best to attract many co-walkers. It was announced on the BKNs website and social media accounts, as well as the online program for Norrtälje ABF. Artists Ami Skånberg, Juanma González and John Schuerman kindly agreed to be lead walkers at three different parts of the trail. Noteworthy is that we walked the trail in reversed order than suggested on maps. The specific trail was selected as it was within reach with public transportation and with sustainable and accessible conditions presenting a safe and easy walk in diverse settings. It was a trail that WAP artists had not walked earlier important to open up to a state of not knowing. (It turned out to be new to all participants.) The stretch we walked was; Fjällbacka bus stop - Fridhem - Mobacken - Grisslehamn.
The program was set up for the group to walk with three artists; Ami Skånberg, Juanma González and John Schuerman . The over all way-finder and accomodator was BKN/WAP24 curator Anna Viola Hallberg. Special guest upon invitation was scholar Lena Gemsöe. In their individual FIELD-NOTE section they elaborate on our day and for more specific information on each intervention please go directly to arists expositions. The group consisted of 13 participants: WAP artists and five non artists. During the walk we pondered on what spaces of anticipation might entail. The fact that we walked in a pilgrim context, gave us more parameters unlocking whathow we think around Space and Anticipation.
The night before the walk the core group researched the trail on the map and located approcimate locations for the the interventions.
Along the trail: We walked for about 10 minutes past the first houses along the trail. As we stopped, Anna Viola Hallberg, curator of the walk held an introduction of the day, covering the lay of the land (landscape, distance, time, pilgrimage, and introduced the three interventions and the artists holding them. Past Fjällbacka, as the trail hugs the water dividing Väddö and the main land, Ami Skånberg brought us along in experimental pilgrimage through Suriashi, a Japanese walking method. An hour later, Juanma González gave each and every one of us a small rock and talked about pilgrims and how they at times carried a rock along. Juanma González asked the group to exchange rocks with one person in the grup at each pilgrim trail marker. We reached a creek next to the road this became the site for Ami Skånbergs suprise intervention - a Japanese Pilgrim song. ack on the trail the walk led us close to a sports field and we decided to use that for John Schuermans intervention. We then walked back to the trail for the last half kilometer.
At noon we reached the end of the trail in the center of Grisslehamn.
Post walk: The group was divided in to subgroups depending on departure time from Grisslehamn. Guest walkers and Cliff left with the 13:25 bus. The rest of the group took the 15:58 bus. Prior to that visiting the museum and studio off artist Albert Engström. The estate is situated in a forest, rock, beach setting. Back at BKN artist residency the site for WAP23 artists Cliff, Marina, Vincent, Jolene, Juanma, John, Ami and Anna Viola had a cookout campfire dinner.
Anna Viola Hallberg is together with Ami Skånberg instigators and curators of WAP >>>
Some hundreds of meters into the trail, I lead the group in suriashi, starting with contextualizing the history of Suriashi but also my own artistic research concept Experimental Pilgrimage. The instruction for the walk in suriashi regarded specific body constructions, and how suriashi always is a movement practice with one or two selected ancestors. I teach suriashi the way my Nihon Buyo-Master Nishikawa Senrei taught me in Kyoto, but then share details of gendered body constructions in Japanese Dance and martial arts, to add further meaning to the practice. I encourage participants to be experimental with the concept ancestor. It does not have to be someone by the bloodline - it can be a living person, or an animal. I encourage the ancestral engagement like this in order to not get stuck with whom to pick, and also to protect each participant's own integrity. I also suggest participants to pick an ancestor that will not be too painful to walk with.
We then walked together in suriashi with our invisible mentors/ancestors/non-humnans as one body for fifteen minutes. I first was so connected to the group, and caring a lot about their experience, their possible pain or fatigue, so I could not invite my own ancestor. After a while however, Nishikawa Senrei joined as she always does, and she enjoyed walking with us. Then my great grandmother Tora came, with a proud smile, and a supportive nod. She was liberated walking with us.
After walking in silence, walkers walked two and two for another twenty minutes, and shared possible ancesors, and the overall experience. This dialogue took partly place on the main road, where many cars from the Åland ferry provided an urban rhythm in the middle of all the green rural spaces. As we reached the forest again, I gathered the group and we shared with everyone who we walked with, and how this affected the walk in surprising, calming or disturbing ways.
It was then time for intervention #2 by Juanma González - art an pilgrimage "Caring Stone Carrying"
At a creek crossing, I performed a surprise intervention #4.
The night before, the lead-walkers and instigator of "Come Walk With US" had a planning session, where we identified a creak by the road. Shortly past the creek, there was a space possible to gather. We had one additional person joining us here, who shared his knowledge about the environment.
I sang a Japanese pilgrim song, part of the imayō collection. Imayō 今様,means modern style, popular in the 12th century. I love how the concept modern travels with us through historical accounts.
RH 300
Warera ga shugyoo ni
ideshi toki
Suzu no misaki o kaimawari
Uchimeguri Furisutete
Hitori koshiji no tabi ni idete
Ashi uchiseshi koso awarenarishika
Our apologetic pilgrimage began
by circling the Suzu Cape
by going around it;
leaving all behind, I set out for Koshi road
How painful each bruised footstep!
Ami Skånberg is, together with Anna Viola Hallberg, an instigator and curator of WAP >>>
We Felt the Ground with Our Feet
We learned
a basic movement of Suri Ashi
and practiced
together.
We felt the ground with our feet.
and walked with ancestors.
Walking on St. Olaf Pilgrimage
Juama talked of natural beauty as antidote.
We traded observations
through stones.
Lena shared the religious, political, and naturalist history.
Ami sang from the 12th century
for our feet.
In Grissleham we found a place to
Circle
and tried to move as one.
We felt
the ground with our feet,
the people that came before us in this place,
the ice ages and eons that shaped this landscape,
the volcanoes that made the rocks.
We felt the turmoil inside ourselves,
and in the world.
I read Alice Walker’s message from earth
of our collective human struggle, grief, and hope,
and her guidance toward unity; the circle.
We moved together
Imperfectly.
We took turns,
we returned,
circled again,
considered the symbol: O
locked Arms
and felt our strength
together.
John Schuerman >>>
co-curator of WAP24 JUNE EDITION
I participated as a guest in the WAP 24 on 21st of May having responded to the invitation “Walk with us”.
As a researcher of pilgrimage, currently working on the intersection of walking pilgrimages and engagement with the environment, I was curious of the notion of “walking artists” and the relationship between art and walking that it implies.
I was particularly struck by the many parallels between pilgrimage practices and the artists’ ways of imbuing the 4 hour walk with meaning, not only in the two interventions that were explicitly related to pilgrimage, such as experimental pilgrimage in the form of the Japanese Suriashi (evoking the strong resemblances between Japanese and European pilgrimage traditions) and the walk on the St Olav’s trail, but in spontaneous reflections and other interventions as well.
This in its turn raises an important theme in pilgrimage studies concerning the capacity of (walking) pilgrimages to unleash creativity of various kinds, e. g artistic, ritual, political –(as in the Caring stone carrying ritual for bringing beauty into the world in times of war and hatred) and to adapt to new circumstances, what I refer to the as the elasticity of pilgrimage.
Although I am still processing these findings, there are two parallels that I find particularly striking – integrated in almost every aspect of the 4 hour walk. The first is walking as a ritual of community-making, powerfully articulated in the intervention “Moving in a Circle” accompanied by Alice Walker’s beautiful words "May we be connected to each other, May we know the range and depth of feelings in ourselves and in each other…” . The second is walking (pilgrimage) as a response to human crises, of personal, political or existential dimensions. As various interventione testify about, these responses can, in certain circumstances, turn into acts of resistance.
Lena Gemzöe >>>
Intervention 1: Experimental Pilgrimage
Lead Artist: Ami Skånberg
Duration/Stretch: 5 min intro, 15 min suriashi walk, 5 min walk 20 min talk in pairs about experience.Contextualisation:
Intervention 2: Caring Stone Carrying
Lead Artist: Juanma González
Duration/Stretch: intro 5 min, handed out rocks,
at each pilgrim marker/post walkers exchanged rock until creak almost in Grisslehamn. Where rocks were placed in a pile.
WHY THE NAME VIKINGALEDEN?
After contact with Visit Roslagen who sent us onwards to Norrtälje office of Turism. Still no answer. They asked us to contact The municipallity of Östhammar. After well over one week we got a vague reply.
Reply: “I have tried to look in project plans that point to the purpose and why it was built. But it is part of a larger concept which is part of St. Olav's Waterwa
The Viking Trail, well the name itself you can think points to the fact that there should be dimensions of the Bronze and Iron Age cultural elements in the form of ancient remains etc.
With everything from visitor destinations and site information - This is given rather little attention along the current route, however.
I found the cultural history inventory and it is attached.”
Excerpt from attached document: "General information about the Viking Trail from a cultural-historical point of view
The texts described for the sections are of national cultural-historical interest. From Grisslehamn, stages 1-3 basically follow the old medieval saints' trail. Häverö church (stage 2) was one such place the pilgrims visited.
We have chosen to lay out the trail so that they mainly follow the old saint's trail and go on small roads and paths used since the Middle Ages. From Häverödal up to Sanda you pass Hargstenen, a rune stone that is one of the oldest depictions of a church building from the 12th century. It stands along the medieval road where the Viking Trail will also pass."
Suprise Intervention (#4): Imayo
Song about pilgrimage from the 12th century collection Ryojin Hisho (=Songs that Make the Dust Dance)
Lead Artist: Ami Skånberg
Site: Post creak by road, almost in Grisslehamn
Imayo Pilgrim Song
Our apologetic pilgrimage began
by circling the Suzu Cape
by going around it;
leaving all behind, I set out for Koshi road
How painful each bruised footstep!
Ami sang in original lyrics, Japanese.
Warera ga shugyoo ni
ideshi toki
Suzu no misaki o kaimawari
Uchimeguri Furisutete
Hitori koshiji no tabi ni idete
Ashi uchiseshi koso awarenarishika
Intervention 3: Moving Together in a Circle
Lead Artist: John Schuerman
Duration/Stretch/site: intro + read text by Alice Walker 5 min, 10 min walk,
At sportsfield in Grisslehamn,
"Vilken fin och magisk dag vi fick. Ni höll det så proffsigt. Intressanta samtal med spännande personer. Flera oväntade och starka moment. Och så himlen, marken dofterna och rytmen. Tack!" Deltagare vid "Gå med oss", 21 maj
Text read by John at the beginning of the intervention.
"May we be connected to each other,
May we know the range and depth of feelings in ourselves and in each other.
There is vulnerability, fear, love, rage, hatred, compassion, courage, despair, and hope in ourselves, each other, and the world.
May we know our most authentic feelings.
And voice them when we speak,
May we tap into soul and spirit when we are silent together
May healing begin in us.
May we form and become a circle."
Alice Walker Quotation (P. 43, sent by earth)
Expostion by JS >>>
