Score #7 - Corona Walker

Score #7 by Corona Walker (Barbara Lounder)

[score base: black background with holes punched out. A woman’s eyes are visible thought the rest of her face is obscured; photo and score: Barbara Lounder (2021) ; score text: seeing the full/separation from/Perambulating/action/walking was cloesly associated with a radical politics/City illusion changed/Edgar Allen Poe/and the ways of/familiar ubiquitious/walking as a mode of affiliation/strayed from the influence/flexibility has/Social Participation/travels/associations, each developed strong/bridge arts/Boundaries Between Art and Life/very soon.]

For Score #7, Corona Walker has created an instruction that considers ‘Perforations, inversions, intersections and interactions as transformations’. We invite you to walk it when you feel that you have the ability to return to everyday sociality in an outdoor public space.

Read the score and interpret it how you please. Share your walk via e-mail (blakemwalks@gmail.com) or on social media using #52More.

Date: Anytime before 31 December 2021
Location: Wherever you are.

Carol, 24 June 2021, Baltimore

An Instagram post with a picture of Edgar Allen Poe's gravestone surrounded by green bushes.

“Yesterday I headed to Baltimore and walked Score #7 by @coronaiwalker (Barbara Lounder) as part of @blakewalks 52 More project. Standing out for me on this score were the words: Edgar Allan, Perambulation, walking as a mode of affiliation, City illusion changed, bridge arts, Boundaries Between Art and Life, separation from.

My walk began at The Bromo Seltzer Tower (I currently have a show there) and I walked towards the grave of Edgar Allan Poe. My first awareness was the France-Merrick Foundation sign on The Hippodrome. The France portion of this foundation was established by my great aunt, Annita Applegarth France.

Walking down Fayette Street, I turned into the cemetery to see the marker for Poe on my right with a small group reading the signage. I continued to walk past them and ventured further into the graveyard, reading headstones and memorial signage. I came upon Poe’s original burial site and his grandfather’s headstone. The Raven was prevalent on the newly constructed headstone (and throughout the cemetery signage).

Continuing on I stumbled upon the final resting place of the parents of John McDonogh. McDonogh was the founder of The McDonogh School, a private boarding school that my father graduated from in the 40’s. Another deceased familiar connection.

Finally I stopped at the Poe grave site. Poe was buried with his wife and his mother-in-law and the monument is dedicated to all 3 of them.

Slowly I traversed my way back to The Bromo Seltzer Tower, looking at the juxtaposition of the old and the new in the city of my birth.”

Blake and Dilia, Barbara, Bob, Brian and Ilan; 31 July 2021; High Bridge across the East River, NYC and the Macdonald Bridge across Halifax Harbour

a pair of hands holds up the score card, wrapped in plastic.

A walk of two bridges, with people starting on either side and meeting in the middle. We shared our walks via Telegram, connecting those on the opposite side of the same bridge, as well the walkers on bridges in different locations. According to Barbara this “immediacy of sharing [ . . . ] gave a lively energy and pace to the crossing.”

A Telegram exchange, on top a picture of a path with rocks and trees on either side. Below Blake writes "approaching the approach" and Bob writes "Arriving Halifax side of the bridge"

A telegram exchange with a picture by Dilia of the High Bridge with a concrete plinth in the middle, she writes "Waiting to begin." Barbara Lounder replies: 'Just about at the bridge ramp now-one person joining me!" Dilia writes "I will wait for you to get to the other side"

In Nova Scotia, the walk was walk was part of Barbara Lounder’s Corona Walker (1870-1889) project, a work of “speculative biography”. A pair of people gathered on either side of the Macdonald Bridge. A return to sociability after a long lockdown.

People walking across the Macdonald Bridge, wires on the right side and a fence on the left side

People walking across the Macdonald Bridge, wires on the right side and a fence on the left side

In New York City, it was an intimate exchange between two old friends, starting at either end of the High Bridge (after Edgar Allen Poe). Our last walk as art was pre-pandemic: Score 5 for 52 Scores (before that it was a walk to the Globe close to the walls.)

The empty path of the High Bridge with an ornate water tower visible at the far end.

The empty path of the High Bridge with an ornate water tower visible at the far end.

We shared benches with uninspired views of multiple lanes of traffic on our Telegram feed. Dilia and I passed a marker – 1870, the year of Corona’s birth. Another small connection to our Canadian bridge walkers.

A bench with an image of a bridge but out of the back of it. The caption reads "Just steped off the bridge and relaxing besides 4 lanes of traffic by this lovely bench!"

A pair of feet in front of a circular plaque on the ground. It reads "1870 A Destination c.1910" and "The High Bridge became a popular destination for day trips. New Yorkers came by steamboat and streetcar to stroll across the walkway."

Walkers we encountered were intrigued by our simultaneous walks, and, as Barbara noted, “several agreed to have photos taken and posted on Telegram. They liked the idea that their participation was part of something that was also happening” in Canada and NYC.

Dilia takes a photograph of three men who are kneeling on the bridge, their bikes are visible behind them, and the ornate watertower is visible at the other end of the bridge.

Two people stand next to eachother on the Macdonald Bridge posing with a smile. The Harbour can be seen in the background.

After the walk, Dilia and I passed her friend’s mural on the way to Dominican food in the Heights. The Corona Walker crew continued on to Halifax’s Hermes Gallery, to visit Bob and Barbara’s show, Composed (2021), the day before it closed.

A mural in purple tones of three essential healthcare workers on a wall. A caption reads "Taking a walk today with @blakewalks and I see @dister and his @ilovemyhood work!"

A man sits in a gallery next to three typewriters and in front of a long image of 6 red lines, the last of which is slightly shorter than the rest.

Julius; 1 September 2021; Eastbourne, Sussex, United Kingdom.

Writing with two photographs: A response to Score #7 by Corona Walker. Julius Smit - 1st September 2021 I live a ten minute walk from the eastern edge of the South Downs National Park, Sussex, UK. Prompted by the phrases ‘seeing the full/separation from’, I decided to interpret the score by walking a length of the coast where I knew I would be acutely aware of edge and boundary and their connections with interactions as transformations when applied to the land and human presence. I walked up to Beachy Head, the highest chalk sea cliff in Britain at 162 metres (531 feet) above sea level. It not only a marks a site for looking out across the English Channel but also for sanctuary, for communication (a radar station was in operation in the early days of the Cold War) and a place where individuals come to end their lives. The picture beneath shows a plaque on a brick wall; the plaque commemorates the heroic crossing of the channel by 5 young men in an attempt to continue their fight against the Nazis. Below reads more text stating "I passed one of the many ‘Cliff Edge’ signs; this one had a faded bunch of flowers tied to it with a bleached piece of paper bearing a written memorial. Loss, memory and belonging. Seeing the full and yet being very aware of separation." Below that is another picture, this time depicting a sign that says cliff edge with some sky visible in the background as well as long green grass.

Text reads: "Further along at Birling Gap, a site noted for geological conditions of weathering and erosion (a metre of chalk is lost to the sea every year), a sturdy metal stairway takes visitors down to the pebbly shore, the beach seen as a liminal space and as a witness to the twice daily transformations taking place between tides. Meanwhile the land can be viewed from polarities of certainty and change", below is a photograph of two people standing on a pathway overlooking the water. More text below that reads "The gravel covered garden adjoining the National Trust café invited me in with its inward curving perforated path: a site for rest, reflection and lunch. As the sole occupier, I luxuriated in the space with its sensations of calm and stillness, fertile conditions for introspection and transformation" and below there is a picture of a spiral path described in the text.

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