Walking into art

by Jill Sawyer

For 100 years the Burgess Shale has inspired scientists and writers as one of the most significant deposits of Cambrian-era fossils ever found. A meticulously preserved window into prehistoric evolution, this almost-inaccessible band of rock lies high above the town of Field in the B.C. Rockies. Last fall, a group of Banff Centre artists trekked the steep trail while it was covered with early snow, to see the site and get fresh inspiration for an unusual visual arts residency.

Called Walking and Art, the residency brought together 30 writers, sculptors, painters, and new media artists to dig into the artistic possibilities behind the simple act of walking. In large and small groups, they explored the monumental landscape around Banff, trekked with purpose in and around the town site, and walked the densely packed outskirts of Calgary, collecting objects and ideas for paintings, performances, stories, and installations.

The residency was led by fine art photographer Ernie Kroeger, who for many years was a facilitator in photography at The Banff Centre. An artist with work in public collections including the Edmonton Art Gallery and the Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography, Kroeger published a book of black and white photographs in 2001 called The Great Divide. A collaboration with Alberto Manguel, the book collected images inspired by Kroeger’s ongoing fascination with the Canadian Rockies landscape. For Walking and Art, Kroeger had an opportunity to share that inspiration with this large group of Canadian and international artists.

The idea for the residency reflects Kroeger’s long-term interest in the connection between walking and visual art. “I wanted to create a residency that takes advantage of the physical environment here in Banff,” he says. “I wanted to share the process that created the work in The Great Divide, a kind of physical or “embodied” research, as opposed to research in a library or lab.”

He is inspired by a handful of well-known artists who have already produced works in the genre, including Janet Cardiff, who created Forest Walk in 1991, a binaural audio walk through the woods around The Banff Centre. British artist Hamish Fulton identifies himself as a “walking artist,” and has converted his monumental international walks into exhibitions. Fulton was at the Centre during Walking and Art, for an artist talk and interaction with the artists in residence.

As part of the residency, artists planned at least one formal walk (or hike) per week, and explored mountain trails including Burstall Pass and Yamnuska in addition to the Burgess Shale. As they went, they recorded the landscape and their own experience of the environment and human movement within it. They photographed, made audio recordings, and tracked their progress through GPS devices. Sarah Cullen, an Ontario-based artist, created a low-tech “drawing box” that automatically recorded movement in pencil as it was carried along the trail. “We were remapping the region in a very personal way,” Kroeger says.

A few of the artists created projects around specific locations in the Banff landscape, including Rebecca Birch from London, England, who engaged locals in collecting stories about the ecological and personal history of Sulphur Mountain. “In cases like that, the personal connections become part of the project,” Kroeger says. “It becomes a social exercise.”

The result of all this work is a re-examination of landscape, urbanism, architecture, and how people live and move within their environments. It allows artists to express positions on many topics, including the conflict between pedestrian and vehicular traffic, urban planning, and the changing environment. “Walking is something we take for granted,” Kroeger says. “But it’s meditative. It changes our perceptions.”