Over the last few years because of Covid Pandemic restrictions, walking re-emerged as an important ritual. Often being the only way it was possible to assemble or it was the only moment of respite from being kept indoors. People re-discovered the places they lived through the act of walking. Re-discovered the nature that itself was emerging into the city in different forms. Now with our freedom of movement and assembly returning it is the perfect moment to explore art in motion in public spaces.
In 2023, with the support of a development award from Arts Council of Northern Ireland, Dumbworld commissioned three Artists to develop work that – through experimentation with individuals and groups around Belfast – explores the notion of ‘walking as art’.
For the premiere of this Work in Development series, we invited Ray Lee to Belfast to present his walking art piece Congregation. On May 5 & 6 2023, roughly 70 people gathered in discrete locations around Belfast, and were guided on an outdoor sonic adventure by a magical sphere. Read more – here.
From then, Dumbworld’s three commissioned artists presented their ‘work-in-progress pieces’ with a small group of invited participants between August and October 2023.
Brown & Brí with Stephen Sexton
It’s close, but it’s not right
What will die with me when I die? What pathetic or frail form will the world lose? – The Witness, Jorge Luis Borges
It’s close, but it’s not right is a twilight walk around the top lake at the Waterworks Park in north Belfast with new writing performed within a painterly landscape of light. Nine jetties are points of departure for a series of messages – spoken, inferred, rotated, repeated, skewed, misheard, or missed entirely. These signals are codes to decipher and dreams to read, proof of humanity, transmitted in hopes of a connection.
In motion through this landscape, we have found a place to reflect on our position as observers within an expanding universe and consider lost contact, broken across expanses of time and space.
Tom Hughes with Maeve McGreevy and Paul Fox
The Spontaneous Footsteps Choir
A participatory and performative sound, dance and music walk, allowing a group of strangers to experience the power of improvisation, connectedness and synchronicity. Improvisation in music is often a creative spontaneous composition in reaction to another. Even strangers familiar with the constructs of music can quickly adapt to each other. Despite what is thought, many will have often musically improvised without even knowing it. Walking with another person provides a similar improvisation – we match their cadence, they match yours, and you constantly adapt to the other without thinking.
John D’Arcy with Vanissa Law
Roost Goose and Chicken Stew
Hong Kong native Margaret Tang moved to Belfast with her parents in the early 90s. As she witnessed the political upheaval in her new home, Margaret became fascinated by some curious links between Hong Kong and Northern Ireland. In particular, a secret government file named “The Replantation of Northern Ireland from Hong Kong”.
