Modern day pilgrimage is growing in popularity – every year numbers grow along some of the oldest and most traditional pilgrimage routes. Pilgrimage has been practised for millennia and is shared by all the world’s major religions, on every continent – there isn’t a day when a pilgrimage is being undertaken.
In days gone by, a privilege for a few to travel to distant places to experience different cultures, and for many a requirement as part of a life-long devotion, today pilgrimage destinations and routes are not limited by faith alone, some not even constrained by an existing route, but carving a new route drawing attention to contested sites and issues sometimes of global significance.
Art has been entwined with pilgrimage from the outset, in iconography and relics, object attribution and travel souvenirs, music and folklore, and more recently in walking performances.
Working alongside the World Trails Network (WTN), a community of trail management and tourism providers, that include many traditional pilgrimage routes and trails that now accommodate secular pilgrims, we are running a series of online events to discuss the roles walking art plays in pilgrimage and vice versa.
Our guests on this opening event include Professor Kathryn Barush author of Imaging Pilgrimage: Art as Embodied Experience, Professor Simon Coleman author of Powers of Pilgrimage: Religion in a World of Movement, Guy Hayward, Director and Co-founder of the British Pilgrimage Trust, and András Molnár from the Budapest Pilgrims Centre and World Trails network representative.
Chaired by Lora Aziz, co-chair of the WTN Arts & Culture Task Force and the team from walk · listen · create, we bring you panels of thought leaders, trail professionals and walking artists to discuss key themes including:
- 3rd March – Pilgrimage today – Purposeful walking, spirituality and cultural routes
- 7th April – Sacred Steps – Contemporary pilgrimage, walking art, climate and activism
- 5th May – Creating pilgrimage routes – Faith-based, radical and community-led paths
- 2nd June – Art on the pilgrim path – Artists working along routes and in landscapes
- 7th July – Stories from the road – Walking writing, sound, photography and archives
- 4th August – Communities and Trails – Local voices, custodianship and care
Concurrent with this series of online events we are also running a poetry writing competition on pilgrimage – read more here.
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Sacred Steps
Contemporary pilgrimage, walking art, climate and activism Modern day pilgrimage is growing in popularity – every year numbers grow along some of the oldest and most traditional pilgrimage routes. Pilgrimage has been practised for millennia and is shared by all the world’s major religions, on every continent – there isn’t a day when a pilgrimage
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+2 Powers of Pilgrimage: Religion in a World of Movement
While pilgrimage often focuses on sacred shrines, it can also occur in apparently mundane places. Indeed, not everyone has the resources or mobility to take part in religiously inspired movement to foreign lands, and some find meaning in religious movement closer to home and outside of officially sanctioned practices. This book argues that we must question
Poetry on Pilgrimage
We have been on the ‘look-out’ for a poetry competition or prize that is exclusively focused on walking and to date we haven’t found one (apart from our own). The poetry universe is huge, there are prizes awarded for hundreds of themes, and many of the more general ones have chosen walking as a theme
• On Pilgrimage 1 – Pilgrimage Today
Working alongside the World Trails Network (WTN), a community of trail management and tourism providers, that include many traditional pilgrimage routes and trails that now accommodate secular pilgrims, we are running a series of online events to discuss the roles walking art plays in pilgrimage and vice versa. Our guests on this opening event include Professor Kathryn Barush author
• +2 On Pilgrimage: what we have learned so far
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
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+11 Creating pilgrimage routes
Faith-based, radical and community-led paths Today pilgrimage destinations and routes are not limited by faith alone, some not even constrained by an existing route, but carving a new route drawing attention to contested sites and issues sometimes of global significance. Art has been entwined with pilgrimage from the outset, in iconography and relics, object attribution
• +2 Art on the Pilgrim Path
Artists working along routes and in landscapes Art has been entwined with pilgrimage from the outset, in iconography and relics, object attribution and travel souvenirs, music and folklore, and more recently in walking performances. Does a pilgrimage route become an open-air studio exhibiting the pilgrim experience? Working alongside the World Trails Network (WTN), a community of trail
• +4 Find Your London: Tree or False?
Devised by Andrew Stuck of the Museum of Walking, this walkshop became a regular event as part of the Mayor of London’s London Tree Week, and subsequent Urban Tree Festivals. Everyone has heard ‘an old wives’ tale’ about a certain tree species, some of which have a layer of truth within them, others are downright
• Stories from the Pilgrim’s Road
Walking writing, sound, photography and archives Every road a pilgrim travels is pre-loaded with stories, and each pilgrim’s journey is a story in itself. In this episode of the On Pilgrimage series we are investigating stories, and the media through which they are told. Working alongside the World Trails Network (WTN), a community of trail management and
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