PORT | Limáni sets out to practice, and test, a set of experimental walking methodologies within peripheral spaces in Edinburgh and within the Prespa region. Edinburgh (UK) based artists, Deirdre Macleod and Stephanie Whitelaw will each conduct separately, a set of repeated walks through peripheral areas in Portobello Edinburgh with which they are relatively unfamiliar and which have a liminal quality to them, by virtue of becoming derelict, experiencing land
use change or being, in some way, ‘unregulated’ spaces which experience a range of human and animal uses.
The aim of these repeated walks will be to explore how different, but connected, artistic responses can help us understand these ‘difficult’ spaces, whilst at the same time helping the artist manage their experience and feelings of walking through them. Stephanie will make experimental object-based responses to space and place during her walk. Deirdre will use forms of experimental drawing as the basis of her responses to walking slowly along her route. Both artists through this project are seeking to test whether and how these methodologies enable us to ‘gather in’ experience and meaning from these spaces and places: hence the reference to ‘limani’ in the project title, which, as well as meaning ‘port’ in modern Greek, means ‘harvest’ in Arabic and Persian.
Individuals attending the Prespa meeting, and interested walking artists in and around Portobello, or further afield, will be invited to engage in this experimental walking methodology by receiving a written instruction text from Deirdre and
Stephanie describing their planned ‘response methodologies’. Interested individuals will be invited to conduct their own walk in the weeks leading up to the Prespa event and to document a reflective response in the form
of a short text and images. The new Art Walk Projects walking app ‘Walksy’ will also provide a method for participants to collect and record their walking experiences.
All participants will be invited to take part in an online meeting to share and discuss respective experiences of object-based or drawn responses to peripheral space, with this taking place online during the Prespa event, on Wednesday 7th July 4pm UK time | 6pm Greece time.
About the Artists:
Deirdre Macleod – Deirdre’s artistic practice sits between contemporary art and the discipline of human geography. She uses a range of fieldwork methods and observational strategies to reveal and frame material and experiential aspects of cities, using drawing and movement to explore human relationships to space and place. Deirdre is a Teaching Fellow in Art at the Centre for Open Learning, University of Edinburgh.
deirdre-macleod.com
Stephanie Whitelaw – Stephanie cultivates through her art practice personal engagements with local landscapes, both physical and digital, cultivating a deeper sense of understanding. Exploring themes of reciprocity, her work harnesses dialogue with nature in both urban and rural contexts, through walking, site-responsive art and object making.
stephaniewhitelaw.co.uk
