We arrived in the flatlands of the Charente in the last days of May, carrying laptops, agendas, PowerPoints about our deliverables, European acronyms and all the fragile optimism required to believe that human beings from five countries can agree on anything. It was a heatwave. Our nostrils tingled with the whiff of ammonia rising from

We are delighted to announce the winner and runner-up in the first chapter of our year-long On Pilgrimage poetry competition. Each quarter beginning in February this year, we have a new theme and new volunteer judges, and our first quarter theme of Solvitur Ambulando was chosen by judge Electra Rhodes. She was joined in the

A few years ago, a group of Australian walking artists came together to form the appropriately named Australian Walking Artists. Going from strength to strength, they recently published a book, Australian Walking Artists, Volume 1 24/25, highlighting work by the members of their organisation. One of the group’s founders, and president, Molly Wagner, wrote an

With a contribution from Martyn Howe offering e-book copies of his new book, The Coast is Our Compass, in which he describes a personal pilgrimage to walk the coast of England along what is now officially the King Charles III National Coastal Path, as a monthly prize, our Shorelines project has had a new lift.

A despatch from our story-writer-in-residence Penny Walker. 30th April Golders Green station to Highfield Avenue, and back 1.5 miles I am by myself among strangers who are friends: women walking together in sisterly solidarity.  We meet just before six, outside Golders Green station, on the small semi circle of grass where the buses turn. At

Venice in May. Green water, muted light, the racketing of tourists’ wheeling luggage across damp stone. Now the Biennale has opened there are new sounds, sometimes protest chants, sometimes the footsteps of marchers. Or perhaps they are old sounds. Venice: a stage for spectacle and protest since the upheavals of 1968. The clamour of a

The long-distance running and ritual dance among the Ralámuli of Mexico’s Sierra Tarahumara is a practice that holds the power to heal and sustain the world. Author Sylvie Marchand has lived among them for years and reflects on this ritual through a dialogue of perspectives: that of Erasmo Palma, Ralámuli poet and cultural guide, and

Our current poet-in-residence, Elizabeth Fevyer takes her kids to Toronto and wonders where everyone is.  We arrive in Toronto one evening at the start of February half-term, as swathes of North America are recovering from some of the heaviest snowstorms in decades. We’ve barely left the airport taxi rank before one of my sons points

Around 2011, the Nau Côclea Contemporary Art Centre entered a moment of crisis, and so did I. It was not only a question of funding. I was also concerned with questions of format and with the relationship between audiences, artists and artworks, a relationship too often reduced to mere consumption. At the centre, people moved

Don’t ask me to identify a tree. I may be the person who invented and co-founded the Urban Tree Festival but I left it to cleverer people to identify the trees we were celebrating.  Over the next four weeks there’s a call out for people to walk in support of the Lebanon Mountain Trail. This

In association with the Arts & Culture Task Force of the World Trails Network, we are running a six month series of monthly online meetings with academic researchers, thought leaders, trail professionals and walking artists to investigate pilgrimage today. Beginning in March, and to run on the first Tuesday of subsequent months, the first session

March 2026 we are holding 3 online Map Scrambles, in which artists will be discussing when and why they use maps or mapping to document their walking art. Map Scramble 1 (Monday 23 7pm GMT)   Map Scramble 2 (Wednesday 25 7pm GMT) Map Scramble 3 (Thursday 26 7pm GMT) Each events part of the