Canadian artist Marlene Creates has used memory mapping in her work since 1986—maps drawn both by her and by others for her. Memory maps are examples of alternative maps, also called participatory maps, counter maps, living maps, deep maps, and even radical maps. Every map tells a story and alternative maps tell alternative stories.
In this presentation, Marlene will show works done in collaboration with Indigenous Inuit and Innu elders in northern Labrador, and her own elderly relatives on the island of Newfoundland. Her most recent work centres the perceptions of about 200 school children who came for multidisciplinary guided walks in the 6-acre patch of old-growth boreal forest where she has been living and working since 2002 on the island of Newfoundland/ Ktaqmkuk.
Following the talk Marlene will facilitate a hands-on workshop: Site + Memory = Place: A Memory Map Drawing Workshop guiding participants in drawing their own thematic, layered memory map of a place that is or has been important to them. All materials for the workshops are included.
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Women Walking in the Woods from Twilight to Moonlight
2025 is the 20th anniversary of events in The Boreal Poetry Garden in Portugal Cove. To celebrate, Marlene Creates and Paula Courage will guide 4 night walks in the boreal forest just for girls and women. Wednesday July 9 and Thursday July 10 at 8:30 pm (NDT) in conjunction with the Night of the Birds Shed Feathers
Walking Art / Walking Aesthetics
The website https://walkingart.interartive.org is a digital platform dedicated to the exploration of walking as an artistic and cultural practice. It serves as an archive and resource hub that documents various walking art projects, events, and research. The site features detailed descriptions, visual documentation, and theoretical reflections on walking art, highlighting its interdisciplinary nature and its intersections with performance, sound, mapping, and urban exploration. The platform aims to facilitate knowledge exchange among artists, researchers, and audiences interested in the cultural and artistic dimensions of walking. In addition to its archival function, the website offers access to curated collections of walking artworks and narrations, contextualizing them within broader geographic and social frameworks. It provides users with tools to navigate and understand the significance of walking within contemporary art discourses and cultural geography. By situating walking practices in relation to place, memory, and perception, the platform emphasizes the role of movement and spatial experience in shaping artistic expression and cultural identity.
Rosieparsons.co.uk
The website of Rosie Parsons presents the work of an artist whose practice intersects with walking, mapping, and the experience of landscapes. The content highlights Parsons’s explorations of place through durational walks, reflecting on the temporal and sensory dimensions of movement across terrain. Her projects often engage with relationships between embodied experience and geographical or historical contexts, using walking as a method of inquiry and artistic production. The site includes examples of Parsons’s collaborative and solo projects, exhibitions, and events that emphasize the layering of memory, environment, and narrative in public spaces. There is documentation of artworks that incorporate drawing, writing, and walking-based performances, underscoring an interdisciplinary approach to understanding and expressing place. The work situates walking not just as physical travel but as a critical practice within contemporary art and cultural geography.
WALC Map Scramble 3 – documenting walking art with maps and mapping
Walking artist presenters in this video: Tamsin Grainger, Hannah Stageman, Fiona Hooton, Bill Psarras and Petra Johnson The third of an initial series of three Map Scrambles in which walking artists share how each of them documents walking art, specifically be adapting, modifying or creating their own maps. Early last year, Clara Gari of Nau
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