Upcoming Forward Footing walks in Norwich and Spalding

We are very excited, having visited the location for our Norwich walk, Eaton Park - what a beautiful place! Please do join us for one of our three hours walks there on Saturday 25th July.  All the walks are free to join, suitable for all ages, sign up on the day - limited numbers.

Saturday 25th July
Eaton Park, Norwich
11am Meadowlands walk
1pm Ping Pong Promenade
3pm Ringing Round walk

Also, we have a NEW DATE!
Monday 24th August
We will be walking in Spalding, Lincolnshire.
Exact details and location to be confirmed, for now save the date!

We hope you can join us for one of these dates.

The Flavour Exchange Mystery Tour

Photo by Andrew Rushton

We gathered at Birmingham Moor Street Station to begin our walk in a mystery destination.
Still Walking had arranged a lovely souvenir ticket with a pot to collect things in on the journey, which worked really well with our ideas for interventions along the route.

A diverse group of walkers, different ages and backgrounds, we set off on the train, having discussed the idea of visiting all the senses on our walk.

Immediately, on arrival at our destination at Earlswood, we became aware of the different sounds in this place from the centre of Birmingham, only a 20 minute train ride away.

Photo by Andrew Rushton

We set off along the road but soon jumped over a stile to walk through a beautiful tree lined path and into a field of chest high rapeseed.

Through the gap and into the woods

a sense of squeezing through 

then an invitation to relax and breathe

Stumbling out of the field we entered the woodland of Clowes Wood. Again the sounds changed. Here we stopped for a while and listened, with our blindfolds on, without speaking for three minutes. Each person gave a word from their experience.

 

Time to Listen

Hum hum

Civilization

Chatter behind

Countryside

M42

Foraging

Pleasant drift 

Hand stitched dry oak leaf offering bowl

A little further on, as we became aware of the softness of the ground beneath our feet, we came across a beautiful oak tree that had grown to form a bowl in the middle of its trunks. We enjoyed the embrace of it, and began to place things in the hollows of its trunk roots.

People have always had a deep connection to forests, woodlands, trees; for the food, shelter and materials they provide, the symbolic and imaginative potential they hold, the habitats they provide for fungi, moss, lichen, other creatures and insects. During our scoping walk we decided it would be appropriate to make an offering / libation vessel to offer to the coppiced oak.

After the Listen Intervention we gathered by the tree and participants were asked to decide how they would like to use the bowl and what they would like to place in it. We brought a foraged oak sapling, water, birdseed, a plinth / stand. Eventually the group decided to fill the bowl with bird seed and that Richard should keep the sapling to plant in a spot of his choosing to replace the one he'd lost in his own garden.

Photo by Andrew Rushton

Wandering on through the woods, we came into a wider clearer space with tall slender beech trees. The wonderful dens that had been here when Carole, Jo and Ben had visited previously had collapsed, leaving a bundle of large sticks on the ground. And so we set about recreating something from the logs, allowing their shapes to lead us.

Photo by Andrew Rushton

A quiet enclosure, and other place to Listen

We found an empty concrete pillar that looked like it had once housed a plaque. Looking up, we could see the plaque high up on the tree above the pillar! So high it was hard to read - we speculated: had it been placed up there high, or nailed to the tree further down which had then grown and lifted it?

Further along our route through the woods, we discovered another empty post. This time we were prepared and fixed a new wooden plaque to the post. We decided on the words we wanted on the sign, and printed them using the blocks Carole had in her bag.

PEACE SPOT

LISTEN

FROM PEACEFUL ACORNS GROW PEACEFUL TREES

We finally reached the other side of the woods, opening out into the Lakes. We followed the path around the lakes, looking out for the kingfisher that had been spotted on a previous visit. Small markers intrigued us, mounted on posts and remnants from old lock systems.

Where the two lakes are split by a pathway through the middle of the water, we stopped for our final intervention: the Flavour Exchange. We all set out on a picnic blanket the home made and foraged foods that we had brought with us to share - what an excellent spread!

Well satisfied from the mutual generosity of everybody's flavour gifts, we then wrote luggage labels about our day, and tied them to a rusted fence that looked like it needed our attention! We left them hanging there as an intrigue for other visitors, and made our way to The Lakes station, where we were just in time to view each other's collection jars on the platform and then catch the train back to Birmingham.

Labels and thoughts

The beautiful tickets created by Pei, Wanting, Fotis and Bink, MA students at BCU on the VisCom course. The tickets joined together to create the title of our walk on the reverse.

The Ticket jars filled with all the items we collected

 
On the train we asked a passenger to draw the winner of our Outdoor Art Kit - our winner was Anna, who couldn't quite believe she had won!  We hope she enjoys the kit.

Our winners!

Thanks to everybody for their generosity in sharing flavours and sensory experiences. And huge thanks to Ben and the Still Walking team for allowing our walk to happen.

If you would like to see more of the Interventions and images from the walk follow this link

Forward Footing at the Flaming Skirt Festival, Ashby and Moira

The Flaming Skirt Banner welcoming us at the start of our Flaming Skirt journey

Artist and curator Sally Lemsford invited Miles and Dacombe to create a Forward Footing Walk as part of the Flaming Skirt Festival 2015, a contemporary arts festival in village halls and public spaces in North West Leicestershire

Participants experienced five mini contemporary art events in Ivanhoe College, Ashby de-la-Zouch, Moira Furnace, Snibston Discovery Museum plus on a double-decker bus travelling between.

Sally devised the Festival because she is passionate about bringing communities the opportunity to experience delightful, creative surprises and the kind of contemporary art events that could happen in village halls or community spaces on a regular basis.

 

It was a new, interesting challenge for Carole and Jo to create a Forward Footing Walk, complete with interventions, that had a tight time frame, was in a designated location and that would fit in between the work of the other artists :- Hunt and Darton, Queenie Tea, Sophie Cullinan and Dave Wood. During the scoping walk in the rain Jo and Carole walked the short distance several times in order to make sure they had their timings correct. It was also important to make interventions that referred to what they saw and experienced in and around the Moira Furnace site.

Inspired by the woodland information boards Carole wrote The Quest of the Flaming Skirt which became an interactive performance by all the participants, some of whom took the part of the characters met during the Quest. 

Some of the children knew the woods well and were able to direct us to the Storytelling circle where our paper boat folding intervention began. 

Jo demonstrating the folds for the Flaming Skirt Flotilla 

It was lovely to see all ages sitting and folding 

paper boats together in the dappled shade.

after the boats were complete we walked our trail 

through the woods, reciting our poem verse by verse

Oscar played the part of the Toad

The Quest of the Flaming Skirt

By the gate beneath the trees

we hear the birds, we feel the breeze

Rustling through the greening leaves

We're on a quest so quiet please

Hidden close at last we spy

The sleepy Toad with the golden eye

Whisper soft my curious dears

Just loud enough just so he hears.

Have you seen or heard or spied

A flashing, flaming skirt rush by?

Not I he says in ponderous tone

I'm dozing here,

I'm all alone

Try the Raven up on high

He may have seen her

rushing by.

Poet Dave Wood was a marvelous Raven

By the gate beneath the trees

we hear the birds, we feel the breeze

Rustling through the greening leaves

We're on a quest so quiet please

Hidden in branches at last we spy

The raven with his flaming eye

Whisper soft my curious dears

Just loud enough just so he hears.

Have you seen or heard or spied

A flashing, flaming skirt rush by?

Not I he says in rasping tone

I'm resting here

I'm all alone

Try the squirrel up on high

He may have seen her

Dancing by

Our Squirrel

By the gate beneath the trees

we hear the birds, we feel the breeze

Rustling through the greening leaves

We're on a quest so quiet please

Up above, at last we hail

The squirrel with his flaming tail.

Whisper soft my curious dears

Just loud enough just so he hears.

Have you seen or heard or spied

A flashing, flaming skirt rush by?

Not I he says in twinkling tone

I'm resting here

I'm all alone

Try the Iris by the river

She may have seen her prancing hither

By the gate beneath the trees

we hear the birds, we feel the breeze

Rustling through the greening leaves

We're on a quest so quiet please.

In the water at last we see

The Iris with her petals three

Whisper soft my curious dears

Just loud enough just so he hears.

Have you seen or heard or spied

A flashing, flaming skirt rush by?

Not I, she shakes her amber embers,

a skirt like that would be remembered.

Try the Robin

He knows best,

He's sure to help you in your quest.

 Out of the woods

Around the Furnace

By the gate beneath the trees

we hear the birds, we feel the breeze

Rustling through the greening leaves

We're on a quest so quiet please.

On the wing, just to the west

Flies Robin with his fiery breast.

Whisper soft my curious dears

Just loud enough just so he hears.

Have you seen or heard or spied

A flashing, flaming skirt rush by?

Ah yes my dears

She came through here.

Fold a boat, she may appear!

To the canal where Queenie Tea presided over the  boat launching

 all our boats set sail in search of the spirit of the Flaming Skirt Festival

and we made sure all vessels were collected before leaving the waterside.

After the flotilla the the Spirit of Flaming Skirt (Jo) 

led our walkers into a field of saplings

gave everyone red ribbons

and invited us to twirl 

and flame in the glorious afternoon light.

The final intervention took place within the mysterious spaces

inside the beautifully restored Lime Kilns

Small groups were given packets of glow sticks and invited to work 

together to create glow sculptures using the cool interior spaces

You can find more photographs from the walk here

After the walk finished we jumped on the bus again

and became participants on this intriguing creative 

journey through North West Leicestershire.

On the return journey we raffled our Outdoor Art Kit.

Here are our winners! We hope they will go out and

on many creative walks of their own in future!

It was a fun filled, fascinating day with wonderful activities and performances.

To find out more about the Flaming Skirt Festival 

and the the artists follow this link