Site/Memory Mapping Project: Collaboration with visual/performance artist Mikyoung Jun Pearce.
Site/Memory Mapping Project: Sound/video works
Through drawing on documents and traces of walking-dialogues experienced in Japan, Korea and the UK, these sound/video works explore memory and the body in relation to space and time, and ask what the action of walking allows in terms of what stories, experiences or confessions are told.
Through drawing on documents and traces of walking-dialogues experienced in Japan, Korea and the UK, these sound/video works explore memory and the body in relation to space and time, and ask what the action of walking allows in terms of what stories, experiences or confessions are told.
5000 Miles and 8 Hours Apart
Sound/video (60 minutes)
At 9.30am and 5.30pm, late summer, we walk together, 5000 miles and 8 hours apart. The Korean and Welsh landscape merge with the telling of stories about our histories and our grandmothers to form a long distance conversation; a moment where time and histories collide; and a slow unfolding shared walk of remembrance.
Sound/video (60 minutes)
At 9.30am and 5.30pm, late summer, we walk together, 5000 miles and 8 hours apart. The Korean and Welsh landscape merge with the telling of stories about our histories and our grandmothers to form a long distance conversation; a moment where time and histories collide; and a slow unfolding shared walk of remembrance.
From Tokyo
Sound/video (15 minutes)
I want to tell you about Tokyo, the city where I am anonymous and yet strikingly different, other. One face amongst a crowd of thirteen million.
In February 2012, almost one year after the 2011 tsunami and Fukushima nuclear disaster, we invited Tokyo’s residents to walk with us for 12 hours, following the Tokyo marathon route. ‘From Tokyo’ draws on our experiences of the city, which we have visited since 2005, and on stories told during the marathon walk. We evoke the conflicting senses of isolation and connection, alienation and belonging, drawing a portrait of the city in the 21st century.
Sound/video (15 minutes)
I want to tell you about Tokyo, the city where I am anonymous and yet strikingly different, other. One face amongst a crowd of thirteen million.
In February 2012, almost one year after the 2011 tsunami and Fukushima nuclear disaster, we invited Tokyo’s residents to walk with us for 12 hours, following the Tokyo marathon route. ‘From Tokyo’ draws on our experiences of the city, which we have visited since 2005, and on stories told during the marathon walk. We evoke the conflicting senses of isolation and connection, alienation and belonging, drawing a portrait of the city in the 21st century.
From Tokyo from Mikyoung Jun Pearce on Vimeo.
Site/Memory Mapping Project: Tokyo Marathon Walk: February 2012
サイト/メモリ•マッピング•プロジェクト:東京マラソン•ウォーク
More information about this project at: Tokyo Marathon Walk 2012
On Sunday 19th February 2012, we walked the route of the Tokyo Marathon (which took place a week later), and we invited participants to join us to walk and talk as we navigated our way across the 26 miles and 385 yards (42.195 kms) of the route over a 12 hour duration. Our intention was to facilitate a dialogue between each other and between us and other walkers through the action of walking.
We intended to chart the transformation of our body and our perception of ourselves, the ‘other’, time, space and the city of Tokyo as we walked the ‘official’ marathon route, carefully selected by the organisers to present Tokyo’s key tourist sites and its sites of power. Through focusing on the small details – such as the fleeting moments of human contact or dialogues - whilst moving at our own walking pace, we experienced the route in a different way to the marathon runner speeding through the city. We are interested in memory and the body in relation to space and time, and in seeing what the action of walking allows in terms of what stories, experiences or confessions we tell, and what others tell us. Is it possible for us to subvert or make an intervention into space and place through small actions and gestures? Viewing the body as a tiny part of the complex city environment, we ask how we can map a space that is alien to us.
Images copyright © 2012 Rebecca Woodford-Smith/Mikyoung Jun Pearce
サイト/メモリ•マッピング•プロジェクト:東京マラソン•ウォーク
More information about this project at: Tokyo Marathon Walk 2012
On Sunday 19th February 2012, we walked the route of the Tokyo Marathon (which took place a week later), and we invited participants to join us to walk and talk as we navigated our way across the 26 miles and 385 yards (42.195 kms) of the route over a 12 hour duration. Our intention was to facilitate a dialogue between each other and between us and other walkers through the action of walking.
We intended to chart the transformation of our body and our perception of ourselves, the ‘other’, time, space and the city of Tokyo as we walked the ‘official’ marathon route, carefully selected by the organisers to present Tokyo’s key tourist sites and its sites of power. Through focusing on the small details – such as the fleeting moments of human contact or dialogues - whilst moving at our own walking pace, we experienced the route in a different way to the marathon runner speeding through the city. We are interested in memory and the body in relation to space and time, and in seeing what the action of walking allows in terms of what stories, experiences or confessions we tell, and what others tell us. Is it possible for us to subvert or make an intervention into space and place through small actions and gestures? Viewing the body as a tiny part of the complex city environment, we ask how we can map a space that is alien to us.
Images copyright © 2012 Rebecca Woodford-Smith/Mikyoung Jun Pearce