"S"

"S" is a collaborative project devised by artists Gudrun Filipska in the Fens UK and Carly Butler in British Columbia, Canada. Each artist is walking the aprox 2,000 miles towards Newfoundland without leaving their own home territories. The steps taken around their respective locations from repetetive and fugal walks are tracked by pedometers and recorded on a digital map where avatars will walk towards Newfoundland, a half way point between their respective homes. Filipska and Butler hope to reach their destination sometime at the begining of of 2019. The project is titled in reference to the first trans-atlantic wireless signal, sent from Cornwall to Newfoundland by Guglielmo Marconi, Italian physicist and radio pioneer in 1901. The message was simply the Morse-code signal for the letter “s”.

The project makes reference to parenthood and the pull of domestic domains and how they affect and change walking practices, and feeds into wider research into the ethical implications of the Fugal walk set against the grand narratives of journeying and pioneering. 'S' was germinated out of a shared ambivilance about the identities generated around 'Motherhood', identities which both artists simultaneously push against and work within the boundaries of - often in the sense of exploring time, space, navigation and travel. This walking project is a physical expression of these limitations, both aspirational in its distance and magnitude and yet humble in its inception - walking without leaving home.

Filipska and Butler are also mapping a number of different routes to find the 'true' half way point between their respective homes using combinations of celestial, nautical and gnomonic mapping techniques, these maps form part of the 'S' archive along with a catalogue of objects, artefacts and letters sent between them; a postal exchange which has included Butler sending Filipska seawater vial by vial until she has enough to fill a fishtank.

Carly's journey

Carly's Journey takes her from her home in Ucluelet, on the West Coast of Vancouver Island to Saint John's Newfoundland, crossing Canada through most Provinces, roughly following the 50th Paralell until Ontario and then taking the route of the Pine Tree Line - a series of now defunct 'pulse mode' radar stations established in the 1950's as a nuclear warning system. As her virtual avatar makes its way across the country she will make contact with fellow artists to share, exhibit and collaborate and perhaps 'borrow' steps to help her on her journey.

catalogue of Objects

Objects, artifacts and letters sent between Carly Butler and Gudrun Filipska

Gudrun's Journey

Gudrun will walk from her home on the edge of the Fens in the East Of England and follow the Ickneild Way, the ancient chalk spine of England, to Dorset where she will trace the routes of various Drover's roads into Cornwall. In Poldhu, Cornwall, Gudrun will re-enact the sending of the first wireless transmission, marking the begining of her embarking on the sea crossing where her footsteps will be converted into nautical miles as she follows the shipping routes from the UK to Newfoundland in a conceptual vessell. Laptops tracking Gudrun's progress will be hosted at various points along the route, in galleries, private homes and cargo vessels.

Seawater exchange

Documentation from the 'S' sea water project.

It is in some ways all too easy to make a critique of the bombastic heroism of the adventurous -often male and white walker with his accompanying colonialism, this project does add nevertheless to this critique but is also filled with our own longing and restlessness - these contradictions persist throughout the project and are at the core of trying to balance the confines (and security) of domesticity with a desire for a creative adventourous existence connected to the wider world.' - Carly and Gudrun.