New York goes to Montreal

Brooklyn-based art collective Elastic City makes “its audience active participants in an ongoing poetic exchange with the places we live in and visit.” How? By commissioning artists to create their own walks. As the group’s website explains, “These walks are participatory and may rely on sensory-based techniques, the creation of new folk rituals and/or other artist-derived…

Where the wind takes you

An inspiring exhibition, Walk On: 40 Years of Art Walking, from Richard Long to Janet Cardiff, has come to a close at the Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art in Sunderland, England. The above contraption, which literally let the wearer follow the wind, was part of it. Work by internationally acclaimed artists such as Hamish Fulton…

The Pennine Way

En route to Glasgow from southern Scotland a few weeks ago, I decided to hitchhike. I could have taken a bus and then a train, but it was a nice summer day, I was in no rush — and thumbing a ride is always interesting. The bloke who picked me up, a picture framing machine…

He’s just walkin’

I spent a day walking around Harlem with Matt Green this past summer. Matt’s “quest” is best explained by his website: imjustwalkin.com. Yes, it’s pretty awesome. Now I’m struggling to write about that day, and what it meant, and what Matt’s project means. I think it all ties together somehow, and somehow it explains why…

A rousing way to start the day

Video from last winter’s walk led by Dr. Stanley Vollant, from Manawan, Que., to Rapid Lake, Que. Who isn’t ready to face the day after a send-off like this? The next Innu Meshkenu (Innu Road) walk starts in a few days.

Streets of Philadelphia

I was in Philadelphia recently and spent a couple of days with police officers who walk the beat in the city’s 22nd District. It’s a tough part of town: there were 35 murders there last year, and it’s only about four square miles in size. But an innovative new program, which sends rookie officers out…