WALC, Walking Arts & Local Communities, is an artistic cooperation project, co-funded by the European Union. With seven partners from five countries, WALC establishes an International Center for Artistic Research and Practice of Walking Arts, in Prespa, Greece, at the border with Albania and North Macedonia, backed up by an online counterpart in the format of a digital platform for walking arts.

On September 17, WALC is hosting a free online seminar on Walking as a Community based art practice, and you’re invited!

Below, Yannis Ziogas, artistic co-Director of WALC, considers the relevance and importance of a community-based approach to artistic practice.

In a Community-based approach to artistic practice, there are no objects, no artists, no materials, no ideas, and no skills; there is only the Community and its needs. Community is an entity that has necessities, it is filled with visible and non-visible characteristics, that have been imprinted in her Body as traumas, wounds, and scars. How is it possible for anyone to be indifferent in all this? How is it possible for any artist to invade the Community like a religious missionary to project his or her Faith, eliminating the existing realities? 

Community is not only the people who inhabit it. It is also the Place that is shaped by the activities of all the living organisms in the environment that surrounds the habitats. Place and Community are one unified entity.

Artists in that context cannot be colonizers of ideas and practices. We have, as artists, to silence ourselves. We must forget who we are and what we have already accomplished, and listen carefully to what is the otherness of the Community and its place. We must live in the Community for a long time and, even if we leave, return to it, both physically and mentally. The bond that is created between us and the Community can never be forgotten: it is always there. The artists must move beyond the superficiality of the conceptual surface and become partakers in the identity of people and places. And always return. 

The transition Place/Community/Body/Manifesto/Process/Implementation as it is presented in the accompanying diagram, is a proposed method for the way the ideas can involve in the realisation of the process of a community-based art-practice. The diagram illustrates a non-linear method that is shaped beyond pre-determined visual directions.

Eventually, artist and Community become one. There are no two different entities (artist vs Community or vice versa) but one. “Unselfishness” in art is not related to moral values but to a way to shape an art practice, not by implementing what is a “maniera”, a safe way of creating images, but by forgetting everything about the so-called artistic identity. This requires a skill that will allow the artist to realize that what he or she has accomplished can be entirely dismissed to re-discover the ontological reason for making art.

We de-objectify art and we objectify it again in the Community. However, this new art object is not visible or tactile: it exists in the realm of ideas, concepts, and needs of who the Other is and not of who we are and what we represent.

Community is the ultimate Object.

WALC opening seminar

Community-based art and walking art are closely linked through their focus on collective engagement, local environments, and the transformative power of moving together. The first keynote speaker at the WALC opening seminar, Clare Qualmann, a pioneering walking artist, bridges these two realms. Her work with Walkwalkwalk, for example, involves communal processes transforming the simple act of walking into a collaborative art practice. Qualmann’s work Perambulator explores the experience of walking with a pram, drawing attention to the challenges and social dynamics of navigating public spaces as a parent. By leading walks with mothers and caregivers, she not only creates an art piece but also fosters a sense of solidarity and connection within the community.
Qualmann demonstrates how walking art can become a platform for community expression, social critique, and shared experience, ultimately blending movement, art, and social engagement into a unified practice. 

The second keynote speaker Jez Hastings, working with Paul Gregory (on Word and Action), and Dario Fo, emphasizes the importance of local narrative. He reflects the stories and struggles of communities, with a focus on rural sustainability and environmental awareness. His practice often involves walking as a tool for exploration and durational walking over long distances, inviting community members to join him on these journeys. His work creates shared experiences that are both creative and socially relevant, transforming art into a vehicle for empowerment and dialogue. 

Curators Nina Felshin and Lydia Matthews, along with the keynote artists and a roundtable of the WALC network convenors, explore the multiple layers of community-based art as they have developed it. They examine how these practices converge in Prespa, highlighting its role as a hub for socially engaged walking art in the 21st century.

Join us on Tuesday September 17, at 18:30 (CEST). It’s free.