What is the relationship between contemporary art and walking right now? Join us for a week-long residency focused on the questions that emerge for art practice and research.
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Dates: 2-9 June 2025
Deadline to Apply: 17 March 2025
Cost: $900 CAD (including HST)
THE THEME: WALKING & ART
THE THEME: WALKING & ART
Contemporary art has a long-established and well-documented relationship to walking. Whether used as a technique for drawing lines on the Earth, or a way of asserting collective sovereignty on stolen land, walking is now accepted as one of the many ways that artists make work. It is also, and equally, deployed as a method in neighbouring disciplines within the arts, humanities and social sciences. As such, it is always subject to new academic and cultural “turns” as they emerge.
Walking is also intrinsic to many of the quotidian, spiritual, philosophical, social and political aspects of our lives and provokes myriad questions for us as artists.
We acknowledge that there are archetypal conventions of “walking art” that do not adequately represent the extent of interest or investment in walking as a practice, or the questions that walking may invoke for artists right now.
This residency – the second in a series – is open to any, and all, approaches to walking as art, and encourages participants to grapple with the questions that arise for all those who have a stake in this area of artistic practice.
THE RESIDENCY
THE RESIDENCY
This residency gives you the opportunity to bring these questions to the fore, and to work through them, in practical ways, among your peers. We invite you to share insights and experiences, and to address with us the questions that arise from your practice with us, and with other participants. We encourage you to take full advantage of the opportunities presented for working beyond the studios at Gibraltar Point, and to consider how you will enable other participants to engage with and gain insights into your practice. We will organise one-to-one discussions of your work, and encourage you to host further conversations, and practical demonstrations, with other participants.
"Residencies often mark significant turning points in the development of an artist’s work, offering time for reflection or experimentation – time on your own to hunker down and grapple with thinking and making. Often what’s missing is the sense of a common project, that our work is part of something larger and more extensive than our own efforts; something current; something urgent.
Our aim is to enable you to open your practice to its wider social context – to the ideas and practices in the wider world that give shape and meaning to our work. This is, above all, an opportunity to find out what shapes the practice and theory of walking – as art, as research – right now; and to find out what walking expresses or produces for us all in these terms.
We do this by creating opportunities for you to interact with each other, to present work, to discuss ideas, to find out what motivates us to do what we do. By the end of a week of thinking and walking together, we hope that you will get a sense of your own practice in relation to the contemporary context for walking in art and research, and the possibilities that this may generate for you.
THE FOCUS
THE FOCUS
The proposition to the artists taking part in the residency is straightforward: to join us in working-out the current relationship of walking and art. This begins by considering the influence of recent “turns” in art and other disciplines; and taking into account the 'histories of practice' in what is now an established artistic field.
Our aim is to find a way beyond any limiting, technical definitions, and to think beyond the label of “walking art” so as to acknowledge the many ways that walking forms part of an artist's practice. While this might include practices that declare “without the walk there is no work,” it also admits those where walking relates a more general interest in mobility, where walking – whether actual or metaphorical – shapes a methodological approach, or methods, or raises specific questions.
Our discussions will lead us towards a focus on walking as one method, among many, adequate to making artwork in a world in motion, which unfolds, and is shaped according to dynamic relationships.
WHO IS THIS RESIDENCY FOR?
WHO IS THIS RESIDENCY FOR?
You will be a visual artist – or in neighbouring disciplines in the arts, humanities and social sciences – with an interest in how walking is deployed in practice, and in the theories that support or provide critical insights into the relationship of walking and art today. You will be a practising artist or researcher with a track-record in visual art (or neighbouring discipline) and the public presentation of your work.
We welcome applications from artists who have stepped away from their art practice and have now returned. We welcome artists who have a new interest in walking and art. We encourage artists to apply who have a commitment to their practice, a commitment to learning with others, and a willingness to share their work and ideas.
Participants taking part in workshop during the first Discussions At The Wayside residency, Toronto Island, June 2024.
ABOUT US
ABOUT US
We are artists with an interest in walking and its relationship to mobility, mapping, landscape, and sociality. We often collaborate on projects focusing on these themes. Pope has over 25 years experience as art school/university faculty. For this residency our aim is to provide the kinds of supervision and mentorship that you would expect on “non-accredited” alternatives to conventional visual art courses at masters and doctoral levels.
Equally we are able to mentor and be a “critical friend” to mid-career and established artists working in both research and professional contexts. Above all, we are advocates of co-learning and look forward to working with you to better understand which questions are important to you as artists, and the ways in which your practice equips you to address them. Our CVs are available here.
The Memorial Walks (production stills), Simon Pope (2007-8). Photo: Bevis Bowden
THE VENUE
THE VENUE
We are hosted by the Gibraltar Point Centre for the Arts on Toronto Island – a 10 minute ferry ride away from the downtown on the Treaty land of the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation.
The participation of the project Navigating Uncertain Terrain with Generosity on the 2024 residency was made possible by support from Arts Council Korea.
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