Led by artist Elspeth Penfold, Enchanted Charms, a quipu map, was created during a unique walking performance as a part of Fruiting Bodies an exhibition by the arts group Changeable Beast at The Old Parcels Office Arts in Scarborough.
The walk was anchored by a pleached pear tree grown in Pickering. The tree served as both starting point and destination for a guided wander that incorporated indigenous Andean thinking, weaving, embodied storytelling, and poetry readings.
The route was not predetermined, but rather a 'drift' inside the gallery. It was guided by eco poetic lunes. Lunes are a form of Haiku. The Champion Pear (lunes) for this performance were written by Dr. Jonathan Skinner during a collaborative walk with Elspeth in 2018. The Rhizomatic Wander encouraged conversations based on both fact and speculation.
Participants were given the poetry seed lunes to read and they used handmade rope to record their experiences using knots called “quipus".At the end of the Rhizomatic wander the ropes were woven into enchanted charms to girdle the tree, their energy entwined as a fruiting body.