Claudia Zeiske walked From Mountain to Sea, a 220km walk through Aberdeenshire, and a COVID-19 commemoration walk, marked by benches, music, an embroidered tablecloth, illustrated map, and film.
Her work is shortlisted for the Marŝarto Awards 2025. Below, she reflects on the experience.

Over two years, I walked from mountain to sea forth and back across Aberdeenshire in the North-East of Scotland. My paths led from Ben Macdui, Aberdeenshire’s highest and most easterly point (and Britain’s second highest point) in the remote Cairngorm Mountains to the North Sea port of Peterhead. 

The project was commissioned as part of Scotland’s Remembering Together initiative to co-create a memorial for people’s COVID times. But the question for me was how to do that in a county as vast as 6000 square kilometre and over a quarter million people? As a walking artist my mission was one of connecting Aberdeenshire’s varied terrain and communities. Instead of creating a traditional sited sculptural monument, walking became both the method and the metaphor to connect people and places, memories and meaning to provide health, hope and healing for the future.

A lot of my work is inspired by Scottish philosopher and community planner Patrick Geddes. One of his ‘thinking machines’, called a Valley Section, links people, landscape, and livelihood. This walk traced some of his original sequence: from the remote Cairngorm plateau, through the royal estates of Deeside, across fertile farmland and suburban edges, to the fishing towns of the east coast. But rather than classifying people by occupation, as Geddes did with his Miners, Shepherds, and Fishers, I wanted to come to know them through their stories, hobbies, and reflections on life during and after lockdown.

Right from early on I wanted to link with as many people as possible. From mountain rescuers to knitters, schoolchildren to foodbank volunteers, prisoners to fishermen, I walked and talked with over two hundred people. Sometimes in groups and sometimes with individuals alone. Together we explored how communities had changed — and how walking itself, one of the few freedoms allowed during the pandemic, had become a form of solace, friendship, and rediscovery.

Walking side by side, conversations opened up in ways that formal meetings rarely allow. The rhythm of our steps replaced the hierarchy of sitting round tables. Shared journeys became shared understandings. 

For those who could not walk, due to age, ill health or imprisonment, I linked through proxi-walks, tapping into people’s memories through shared embroidery and storytelling. I did this through offering embroidery sessions. Sometimes in groups, sometimes with people alone in their own home.

The Pink Tablecloth

Along the way, a bright pink tablecloth — the colour of Ordnance Survey maps — was strapped to the top of my rucksack. Printed with Geddes’ Valley Section and updated symbols of our time, such as wind turbines and oil rigs, it became a mobile meeting place. Wherever it was spread — at a picnic on a hillside, in a garden or pub, in a café, or in the prison library — tea, food and stories came together. After our conversations, participants signed the cloth, and later I embroidered their names and messages in many colours, following a tradition begun by my grandmother, who stitched the signatures of her guests as memories of hospitality.

The cloth, now densely embroidered with over 200 signatures and drawings (destined for the new Aberdeenshire Museum), carries the voices and laughter of the people of Aberdeenshire. For me it is a tactile memorial to resilience and connection.

Making the Path

The Mountain to Sea route gradually emerged from these encounters with people from all over the county. The terrain changed from challenging mountain treks in the remote Cairngorm plateau, where we had to carry tents to more accessible paths and smaller roads as we wound ourselves through the vast county. The path created therefore is not a new one. No digger was needed. Instead it became a co-created line daisy-chained together through linking existing tracks, paths, lanes, and minor roads across the shire. Important for me was that it was accessible for many. As such not the most direct route was chosen, but one that meets villages and towns at the end of a day’s walk.

What was a fortune, was that I could work with people over a period of two years. As such I could test the route many times, in both directions and in all weathers.

Along the way, master craftsman Chris Nangle created a family of wooden benches marking key stopping points. The first one was carried up high to Hutchison Hut just below Ben MacDui by the Braemar Mountain Rescue Volunteers. The last one sits proudly overlooking the North Sea to Norway, for the siting of which I worked with the local community council enthusiasts. 

All this was complemented by musician Paul Anderson who composed an album of new fiddle tunes for the project — reels, jigs, and airs reflecting the moods and places of Aberdeenshire during COVID: from solitude and sorrow to community and hope. All those were performed at a roadshow across all the villages at the launch of the projects, alongside my telling of the stories gathered.

The walk culminated in the making of the Mountain to Sea Map, which I am particularly proud of. It is beautifully designed by Mark Samouelle and now widely available in Aberdeenshire’s libraries, schools, tourist destinations, and in the homes of those who spoke with me. Its contemporary Valley Section charts the full route — a pink pathed thread of memory and landscape weaving from the remote highlands to the North Sea coast.

Stories Along the Way

As the journey unfolded, the walk became a mirror of Aberdeenshire’s contrasts. In the more affluent west, people spoke of new hobbies — baking, birdwatching, gardening. In the east, more stories turned toward hardship: illness, job loss, and isolation. With such unexpected sadness I was to encounter, I wanted to avoid having to record the people I talked to. Instead every night I recorded my own memories of our conversations. 

In Peterhead, foreign fishermen described months trapped aboard their vessels, unable to disembark. Foodbanks struggled as volunteers shielded at home. Prisoners in HMP Grampian faced extended confinement. Yet even in the bleakest circumstances, walking emerged as a common thread — a free act that gave rhythm and meaning to disrupted lives.

Step by step and stitch by stitch, each conversation, each shared mile, became a stitch in a collective tapestry. The resulting path — 220 kilometres from mountain to sea — has become a living memorial. Anyone can follow it in full or in part, from bench to bench, or create their own “Valley Section” walk within their own community.

Hope, Healing, and a Map

The Mountain to Sea map embodies the original intention of the commission: to create a memorial to people’s COVID experiences that could support remembrance while also offering a sense of hope and healing. Rather than fixing memory in a single site, the work remains open and mobile, inviting people to walk, pause, and reflect in ways that suit their own lives. As both artwork and guide, the map encourages reconnection with place and with one another — not by revisiting crisis, but by acknowledging what was endured and how care, movement, and shared ground helped people through.

I am grateful to Aberdeenshire Council for entrusting me with this project. More than one of the people I met said that this was a brave step. I am also indebted to my collaborators Chris, Paul and Mark for the benches, the music, and the map that give it form. But above all, I am thankful to the people of Aberdeenshire who shared their stories with me — often in the darkest of times. Their generosity, openness, and trust are what truly shaped this work. Walking with them, listening to them, and carrying their stories across the land has been both a responsibility and a privilege.

The winner and honourable mention of the Marŝarto Awards 2025 will be announced in early 2026.