August 1st 2024, at 5 pm (Rome time) six artists in three countries made an artistic intervention to manifest the fact that it was exactly 100 years ago since the Surrealists began their walks for disorienting the urban space and walking without itinerary. They often began their walk while drinking champagne. Artistic walking was at that time also part of the Olympics, and competing walkers were asked to drink champagne to have a healthy body. We wish to thank co-walking artist Geert Vermeire for informing about this fact through the team Walk Listen Create.
As critical as we - as walking artists - are of the excluding and privileged white men's walks in Paris, we do want to acknowledge important walking acts where art and the city were involved.
We want to point that one hundred years later, the agenda is different, and we then also would like to - through the help of walking scholars Deirdre Heddon and Clare Qualman - acknowledge the shift in how socially engaged artists work, which is different from the lonely modernist avant-garde genius.
On August 1st, walking artists Anna Viola Hallberg and Ami Skånberg, being in Rome for the World Congress of Philosophy, proposed a walk together with two present performance philosophers Elisabeth Laasonen Belgrano and Mark Price, as well as walking artists Rebekah Dean and John Schuerman.
Skånberg, Hallberg, Laasonen and Price walked on Ponte Fabricio also known as the Jewish bridge and and Ponte Cectio, connecting the city with the Tiber island. They reflected on the fact that Ponte Fabricio is Rome's oldest bridge, and the third oldest bridge in the world. They also invited excerpts from there upcoming performance philosophy presentation - Black market Thruths: Performative Wisdom in Passion, Grief and Madness. Artists were also asked to drink whatever is similar to champagne the walking artist in Rome had Prosecco.
Dean walked in the grounds of Stephens House and Gardens, London, UK on a sweltering hot afternoon, sipping Earl Grey Tea. Stephens House and Gardens is a special place for Dean where she is curating an exhibition, making many Walking artworks with other artists: other BKN artists and women artists. The Sculpture Trail The Sky is Moving Sideways will feature both BERG DUO and Nahelli Chavoya, a past BKN artist, and dance artist from Mexico. The venue is a place where Dean used to take her daughter when she was a child, and where she completed an artistic residency in 2018 with a non-profit parent group HOMESTART, and it seemed she has stayed there in the partnership with the venue and various Walking projects since.
Schuerman walked in George Floyd Square in Minneapolis (us) near where he lives. He wanted this memorial place to be in the company of the memorable places we all were in, so that got shared. Schuerman was drinking sparkling water (though he aspired to champagne). Schuerman was co-curator of Berg Duos program WAP24 - JUNE EDITION.
Belgrano and Price initiated the working group of Performance Philosophers for World Congress of Philosopy in Rome August 1-8, 2024. Berg Duo Presented UN MADNESS on August 7th.
Views from John Schuermans Centennial Walk at George Floyd Square in Minneapollis, Us.
(Click on img for larger view)
