Journey Lines will bring together discussion around path making and place making, to consider tourism and access along our coast lines. Discussing how we consider the role of tourism in making (or breaking) places, Zeiske will give an illustrated talk about her long-distance 700 mile walk Slow Coast 500 commissioned by Art Walk Projects. In conversation with anthropologist Tim Ingold, who will talk about his ideas of the Line, they will discuss socio-ecological approaches to anthropology, drawing connections with walking, weaving, storytelling and writing, and consider the impacts on the environment and community for path and place-making. Chaired by Ben Twist (Director, Creative Carbon Scotland), the event will also bring together representatives from different coastal path locations on the North Sea coast, as well as tourism and place making strategies.

About Slow Coast 500 - Claudia Zeiske’s Slow Coast 500 (commissioned by Art Walk Projects) was a long-distance walk from Dunnet Head to Berwick-upon-Tweed along the entire coast of the North Sea in Scotland. The project borrowed its name from the North Coast 500 route designed to attract tourists to drive around northern Scotland. Slow Cost 500 considered the role of tourism in making (or breaking) places. Often intended as a boost to local economies, tourism can contribute to problems for local communities and their environment.

Throughout the walk, Claudia used existing routes and explore new ones. Along the way, she carried an orange tablecloth the colour of a 1: 25000 OS ‘Explorer’ map, inviting people to join for picnics and dialogue. Step by step and stitch by stitch, she embroidered it along the 700 miles way from the UK’s most northerly mainland point to the Scottish-English border, questioning the role and impacts of tourism today. Postcards sent home to Art Walk Projects (the commissioners) in Portobello ensured a consistent daily journal made up of her unique Thinking Aloud writing style.

Claudia Zeiske is a walking curator, whose interest lies in path-making as a cultural practice. With friendship at heart, her walks combine a desire for a slower pace of life with socio-politically and environmentally sensitive issues. For more than a decade, her walking art projects have varied from short to long, in her vicinity or further afield, connecting places, communities and people along the way. Her walking prose promotes thinking aloud.

Projects include: Walking Lunches (2010-ongoing) a play on corporate working lunches; Home to Home (2017), a Brexit-stimulated 1,800-mile walk from the artist’s home in Huntly, Aberdeenshire to her childhood home in Bavaria, Germany; Slow Marathons (2012-ongoing), annual themed group walks, questioning the competitive nature of marathons; and From Mountain to Sea (ongoing), a 150-mile walk across Aberdeenshire to mark the Covid period.

Tim Ingold is an Anthropologist, whose interests are wide-ranging based on his individualistic scholarly approach. They include environmental perception, language, technology and skilled practice, art and architecture, creativity, theories of evolution in anthropology, human-animal relations, and ecological approaches in anthropology. This has taken him to examining the use of lines in culture, and the relationship between anthropology, architecture, art and design.

Ben Twist is the Director of Creative Carbon Scotland. Believing that only by working across the realms of individuals, organisations and policy can real change take place he will be chairing the event.

Supported by: Creative Scotland, Paths for All, Creative Carbon Scotland

Art Walk Projects – www.artwalkprojects.co.uk