THE WALK IS THE FREEDOM

2021
4-day performance art walk, photography, text
Poland, Czech Republic, Austria

I feel a great need for freedom, free movement. It's July 2021, various restrictions related to the coronavirus pandemic are still in place, but are being relaxed due to the vacation and vacation period in order to drive the economy through tourism business. I want to get from Poland to Austria but I don't want to participate in either the tourism business or be subject to restrictions and pandemic surveillance. After a period of lock-downs, I am yearning for free movement. I decide to get to Austria on foot, crossing the green national borders, outside of all surveillance.

I intend to cross the border in the forest and, continuing on foot, get to the nearest large city in the Czech Republic (about 45 km), from where I will take a bus that will take me to the south of the country (300 km). From there I will continue on foot, crossing the Czech-Austrian border in the forest, reaching Gars am Kamp (about 60 km). There there is an art symposium and festival where I am invited to present a new performance. I estimate that this march, including the bus ride, will take me 5-6 days. 

During the march I will come up with a performance to present. That's what I'm thinking, because I still can't come with a clear idea. I still feel traumatized by the pandemic, I feel that the creation of artworks, especially performance, must change because of that experience. How to create performance in a post-pandemic world? I secretly hope that this several-day march will help me answer these and other questions.

For two days I pack my backpack, weighing it many times, trying to take the minimum amount of things, while being ready for different conditions and situations. Warm clothes, a military coat that serves as a roof at night, and a hammock under it. Thermos. The book 'Wanderlust' by Rebecca Solnit. Diary, analog camera, map inside an offline phone, first aid kit. Everything will come in handy, as it will turn out later. Even an evening outfit, for which there was also room. All my luggage weighs 20 kg. I deliberately intend not to use the intrenet during the march, only occasionally when I catch Wi-Fi somewhere. 

I quickly learn that in such a march there is no room for thinking or coming up with ideas, reflections on art, politics, pandemics. Marching shifts all my attention to the body. The only things that matter are its sensations and needs. I impose a high pace on myself, I can't walk slowly with the awareness of how much distance I still have to walk. On the second day, tremendous pain and fatigue appear. At the same time, walking becomes like a trance, during which the mind is emptied of thoughts. This gives a certain lightness. All my attention is here and now, in the body and in the immediate environment. 

On the second day I reach the city - Liberec. The direct bus, which I wanted to take straight to the south of the Czech Republic to Znojmo, is sold out. I have to go through Prague, and figure out how to continue. In Prague I have 4h until the next bus. I decide to visit a place I really like there - MeetFactory on Smichov. Especially since there is an exhibition there that encourages me with its title (Planted in the Body). I don't even know yet how good it was that I went there, that I had this unforeseen change here, and these few free hours. 

I arrive in Znojmo after 9 pm on the second day, darkness is falling. I head out of town, up the hill to the scenic park, it's dark, it starts to rain. I find shelter and lay down in a hammock. On the third day I travel through the beautiful countryside of Czech Moravia, an area of vineyards and stud farms that continues on the Austrian side. Beautiful hills covered with grasses, stone carvings depicting ce Catholic saints on stone columns, sacred springs - water! It turns out to be the most important thing on this trip. Marching in this heat I don't want to eat, but drink - yes. Still with water in my mind, I take every opportunity to get water to drink or wash myself. Twice I ask people I meet to fill my thermos with water. Other than that, I don't interact with people, and so I mainly traverse trails devoid of people, sometimes I go cross-country following my intuition and general direction, skipping designated trails.

Austria is dominated by farmland, lots of industrial hemp, and everything is leveled and measured. Lots of fields, few forests, little shade in which to shelter from the hot July sun. Many hunting pulpits, also in the form of trailers, sinister vehicles.  Almost no bodies of water at all, fresh water is hard to come by. In the evening it flashes on the horizon - will a storm and heavy rain come? On the third day I march late, I can't find a convenient place to install my hammock. Finally, out of fatigue I give up, I spot a makeshift hunting pulpit in a tree. I climb up there, but I don't manage to stretch the hammock well - it hangs like a bow like a flabby croissant. As I lie in it, half of my body - with one half-ass - is leaning against the makeshift seat in the tree pulpit. It's flashing in the distance, the wind is blowing, and I'm so tired that I don't have the strength to look for another place for the hammock. I legitimately don't sleep that night. My body is so monstrously uncomfortable, in this tree, in this spot from where the game was probably shot. The pain, the fatigue, the discomfort, the inability to sleep, the wind. I keep falling asleep for a few moments and waking up. Torture. I pray for the morning. Finally it comes. Before the sun even rises, I'm already packed and on my way. I watch the orange ball as it emerges from over the horizon and slowly rises. 

It's about 10 a.m., the fourth day of the trek, when I reach the sacred spring in Mold. Blessing. I think about the sites of pagan practices like this one, which the Catholic Church has destroyed and seized. Under the watchful eye of the Virgin Mary trapped behind the bars of the shrine, I strip off my clothes and step under the stream of holy, invigorating, cold and pure water. In the afternoon I arrive in the vicinity of the symposium site. In the woods I find signposts leading there, but I still get lost. In the late afternoon I finish my march by reaching the site.