4WCoP 2024

Walking a Line: Encounters Through Drawing.

A walk for The Fourth World Congress of Psychogeography 2024

As I walk, I draw

Between riverside and woodland

Begin at weir, rushing water

Bubbles

Nettles wave in gentle breeze

Brambles dance

Leaves and branches sway

Twigs float by

Petals scatter on ground

Dandelion clocks disperse

Birds fly by

Perch overhead

Sound of traffic

Of trains

Of meadow being mown

The occasional passer-by

Chiffchaff, robin, long-tailed tit

Magpie, blue tit, robin

Splashes of yellow, white, purple

Mostly green

End where river ripples

For the theme of this year’s Fourth World Congress of Psychogeography (4WCoP), ‘Heritage and Hiraeth’, I said that I would walk riverside and woodland, drawing as I walk, my pencil tracking and tracing sounds, movement and the rhythm of walking. Pausing to draw birdsong, the sounds of leaves and water, the movement of a branch, flight of a butterfly, attempting to geolocate its source on the page. In search of sensory responses and a visual mapping of Heritage and Hiraeth, I am taking into account layers of history and biodiversity whilst responding to unexpected and serendipitous encounters and whatever catches my eye: a visual response to what I see and hear whilst moving. 

I often find that what I visualise will happen when drawing whilst walking changes course once I get started: the weather changes, unexpected sounds, a butterfly passes by. My attention shifts as my senses respond to being in a place at a particular time. My drawings are led by what is happening around me and the pace of walking.

Last year I proposed walking and drawing  A Line Towards the Moon (4WCoP23) and ended up spending most of the summer in search of an elusive moon hidden behind clouds. I thought that my drawing for this year would be less affected by the weather. It began however, with the various July dates that I had set aside to make this work being heavy rain-filled days. Eventually the rain paused enough to take my drawing materials off for a walk.

Watch my video for this year’s 4WCoP on Vimeo or You Tube.

I was mindful of the theme for this year’s 4WCoP, ‘Heritage and Hiraeth’ and selected an area of parkland between river and woodland where I could walk a line that embraced both new and old.

The limestone underfoot takes me back into deep time, whilst the younger trees growing out of the earth ground me in the present. The river here is not far from the source. Downstream it joins the River Thames, loaded with heritage, as is the nearby canal, part of a wider network of inter-connecting waterways that criss-cross the country. This park used to be a Victorian rubbish dump but is now a recreational park and doubles up as the flood zone for the town. It is slowly extending further out into the countryside, with a lake added and overgrown parts for wildlife.

The sound of traffic is always present, and the occasional train, but the water, trees and birdsong are closer.

When thinking about ‘hiraeth’ in connection to this area, the first thing that springs to mind is a longing for the sea, for water, rivers clean enough to swim in, where wildlife and ecology can thrive.

I selected a folded length of paper for this walk, slightly worn around the edges and small enough to fit in my hand, carried in a backpack and taken for a walk. As I walked I occasionally paused briefly but mostly kept moving at a steady pace, looking up, down and all around. Unlike my previous drawings for 4WCoP, these ones were less about looking up at the sky and more about what was in underfoot, in front of me and to either side. Whilst the sun and moon didn’t directly feature this year, the light and shadows were central, along with the breeze.

As I walked I was ‘mapping’ what I saw, sometimes looking at the paper as I drew, other times caught up in what I had seen. I noted down words and observations along the way. These words and close-up images from the concertina drawing were photographed in situ at the end of the walk and made into a video. 

My lack of decent sound recording equipment meant that the recordings of the birdsong in situ were too mixed up with traffic noise so instead I have used a summer solstice recording from my tent on a farm where I was making Fieldwalking drawings for another project. The sounds of water are from the weir at the start of the walk. At first it was a temporary fix but once viewed together I decided that including sounds from elsewhere juxtaposed with the text of sounds from the walk has the potential to open up its location to reaching across places, whether through memories triggered or places imagined. Maybe it doesn’t have to completely make sense. 

Read more on my previous works for 4WCoP:

A Line Towards The Moon: Walking a Line: Encounters Through Drawing (A sensory engagement with the ground) 2023

A Line Towards The Sun: Walking a Line: Encounters Through Drawing (A sensory engagement with the ground) 2022

Attend 4WCoP 2024:

If you’d like to hear about all the 4WCoP2024 projects, you can sign up here for the free online event on Fri 6 Sept, and find info on attending in-person for the weekend in Canterbury.

Find out more about The Fourth World Congress of Psychogeography on their website here.

#4WCoP2024