Long distance walking on heritage paths: visions on crossing roads in time and space.
Walkshop/walking practice/presentation.

a project by Sophie Cabot, University of Quebec in Montreal, Ienke Kastelein, independent walking artist, Netherlands, Béatrice Khoumeri, University of Corsica.

WAC International Encounters/Conference 2023 Prespa, Greece

Keywords : distance, memory, body, mind, heritage, heterotopic territories, water

During Prespa 2021 encounters, ten hubs selected all over the Word organized different walks around different themes on its respective territory. [1] Thus during this period of pandemia the Walkers of Hubs could participate at distance at this hybrid event. The three authors of this proposition, Ienke, Beatrice and Sophie interacted online and connected then, through the Carleton-sur-Mer hub, Quebec, Canada. [2], [3]

For Prespa 2023, we propose a performative presentation to engage with the audience in an experience of walking while sitting and listening – to walk down memory-lane – sharing the space and time between those who are physically present and others elsewhere guided by Sophie and Beatrice in Prespa and Ienke in the Netherlands.

The walking from a distance we did in the past few years, opens up a new point of view on what is distance, what is time and what is presence [4]. As walkers focusing on human relations, we valorise the presence embodied with the others when we walk together, but the pandemia pushes us outside of this habit, experiencing new rich, profound moments in distance, even when we were not on the same continent and the same time zone. The only connection is in the awareness of walking with the partner at the same time with a similar intention which gives us the sensation of proximity. Also, we noticed some synchronicities. We would talk about this.

So, for Prespa 2023, we will conduct a walk exploring the similar parameters of being in distance.. The performance will begin with an introduction of our own experiment of the walking distance, presenting pictures, sounds and a few words to prepare the audience.
In the second part, participants that are elsewhere are invited to walk or sit in their own space while the public that is present will be invited to close their eyes, and walk with us on an imaginary path, in heterotopic territories. «

The aim of these experiments is to create a space of concentration, connection between walkers – artists scientists and others. While walking with one another we are physically sharing a place, but what do we share when we walk in separate places – where are we in space? How do we perceive reality, our-selves and each other during these experiments? The wavelength is the most appropriate reference we found to express the sensitive wave we wish to convey.

Sophie Cabot, Ienke Kastelein, Beatrice Khoumeri

References
1. https://walklistencreate.org/walkingevent/walking-as-a-question/
A «heterotopic» reading might reveal that the subject is displaced in
many different ways, from the analogue to the digital landscape, and from the specificity of the localto the universal of the global web» [5], from the corporeal to the virtual and also from legacy of the ancestors towards a new story for the future.
2. Sophie Cabot for the Hub Carleton-sur-Mer, Walking with a question. Walking Arts Encounters/Conference, July 4th to July 17th 2021, Prespa, Greece
3. Béatrice Khoumeri for the Hub of Corsica, Walking in transmitting past and present for sustainable futures, Walking Arts Encounters/Conference, July 4th to July 17th 2021, Prespa, Greece
4. Ienke Kastelein, Long distance walking/A hybrid walk International Walking Arts Encounters/Conference, July 4th to July 17th 2021, Prespa, Greece
5. PC. Smaniotto Costa