There is a starting point: a blank sheet of paper and a gesture. In this ongoing workshop, each participant is invited to write, draw, or inscribe a promise—personal or collective, fragile or ambitious. Each promise is placed on a sheet of identical size and attached to a shared wall. Every new promise must connect to an existing one through a line, gradually forming a living cartography where no freedom exists in isolation.
In this space, promising becomes a commitment within a shared field. Contributions may connect, contradict, overlap, or disrupt previous ones, transforming the evolving map. Freedom emerges not as an individual condition but as a relational practice shaped by interaction and responsibility.
Throughout the week, the wall grows into an unstable landscape of bonds, tensions, and possibilities. Participants may also take on promises written by others, assuming responsibility for continuing or transforming them.
At the end, the remaining sheets are gathered into a book-object, preserving the trace of a collective process where freedom is experienced as relation, risk, and shared commitment.
Hosts
Walking Arts & Local Communities (WALC) is an artistic cooperation project, co-funded by the European Union, Creative Europe, starting in January 2024 for four years. 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.
WALC builds on the previous work of hundreds of artists and researchers already practicing Walking Arts as a collaborative medium, and having met at the significant previous walking arts events and encounters in Greece, Portugal, Spain, France, Belgium, and during online activities at walk · listen · create.
We acknowledge the support of the EU Creative Europe Cooperation grant program in the framework of the European project WALC (Walking Arts and Local Community).
Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.
