Interview with Barbara Lounder
Barbara Lounder is a visual artist and educator living in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. She has a BFA from Queens University in Kingston, Ontario, and an MFA from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (NSCAD), where she now teaches. Her current art practice focuses on walking as a creative methodology. Her performative works engage members of the public in carefully designed walking activities, sometimes utilizing prosthetics such as walking sticks, stilts, backpacks, blindfolds, locative devices and portable digital projectors. For more, visit her website.
Barbara Lounder: This is photo of me from the Pictou Island Portage, Summer 2014. My piece was called “Carrier”, and for it I wore a yoke (which I carved from yellow birch harvested in the region) to carry everything I needed each day for one week. I also wore a special costume each day. Photo by Katherine Knight.
Barbara Lounder: This is photo of me from the Pictou Island Portage, Summer 2014. My piece was called “Carrier”, and for it I wore a yoke (which I carved from yellow birch harvested in the region) to carry everything I needed each day for one week. I also wore a special costume each day. Photo by Katherine Knight.
What is it about walking that is important to you?
There are two aspects that are important to me:
1. Walking is ordinary
2. It is both temporal and spatial.
Does walking have an effect on creating? How do you access it when you stop walking?
Walking seems to bring new ideas and realizations into focus more readily than other modes. Other kinds of repetitive, durational physical activity (such as running, swimming, digging or raking in the garden) have a similar effect for me.
What are you drawn to?
When I am walking I seem to become more aware of (and more curious about) textures and fragments of things. I am drawn to detritus, worn surfaces, and accidental markings.
How long have you been aware of your practice? How did it start?
It started when I was completing a body of visual work that involved decorative patterns and repetition. I realized that my interest in pattern was akin to my fondness for simple, repetitive art making gestures and actions, such as carving and whittling. I decided to make some simple walking sticks. That was in 2007.
What kinds of questions are you exploring in your practice?
At present, I am working with several others in a collaborative group called Narratives in Space + Time Society (NiS+TS) on a three-year project about the Halifax Explosion. It’s called “Walking the Debris Field”, and through it we are creating public walking events that explore the dense layers of meaning in our urban space. We are using GPS tracks, spoken word, sculptural objects and other elements to look at how the present is laid out over the past. NiS+TS is concerned with unofficial stories and places, not the usual landmarks and historic voices. Walking helps us discover these stories and places, and connects us with others who share our interests.
I am also making “solo” work, exploring the potential for walking to connect memory, the past, present and future, and considering different reasons for walking; walking as commemoration, exile, flight, labour, etc.
There are two aspects that are important to me:
1. Walking is ordinary
2. It is both temporal and spatial.
Does walking have an effect on creating? How do you access it when you stop walking?
Walking seems to bring new ideas and realizations into focus more readily than other modes. Other kinds of repetitive, durational physical activity (such as running, swimming, digging or raking in the garden) have a similar effect for me.
What are you drawn to?
When I am walking I seem to become more aware of (and more curious about) textures and fragments of things. I am drawn to detritus, worn surfaces, and accidental markings.
How long have you been aware of your practice? How did it start?
It started when I was completing a body of visual work that involved decorative patterns and repetition. I realized that my interest in pattern was akin to my fondness for simple, repetitive art making gestures and actions, such as carving and whittling. I decided to make some simple walking sticks. That was in 2007.
What kinds of questions are you exploring in your practice?
At present, I am working with several others in a collaborative group called Narratives in Space + Time Society (NiS+TS) on a three-year project about the Halifax Explosion. It’s called “Walking the Debris Field”, and through it we are creating public walking events that explore the dense layers of meaning in our urban space. We are using GPS tracks, spoken word, sculptural objects and other elements to look at how the present is laid out over the past. NiS+TS is concerned with unofficial stories and places, not the usual landmarks and historic voices. Walking helps us discover these stories and places, and connects us with others who share our interests.
I am also making “solo” work, exploring the potential for walking to connect memory, the past, present and future, and considering different reasons for walking; walking as commemoration, exile, flight, labour, etc.
Where or how does a work begin for you?
A work often begins with a question or idea, or possibility that has arisen in an earlier work. Sometimes it will be an idea that is generated by a specific location.
Can you do your creative practice--and still run errands on the way?
Sort of…
Do you have a favorite place to walk?
I can’t pick a favourite! I have had my breath taken away in so many different walking places.
A GPS track from the Narratives in Space+Time public walk on December 6, 2014,
“Walking the Debris Field.” Image courtesy NiS+TS.
A work often begins with a question or idea, or possibility that has arisen in an earlier work. Sometimes it will be an idea that is generated by a specific location.
Can you do your creative practice--and still run errands on the way?
Sort of…
Do you have a favorite place to walk?
I can’t pick a favourite! I have had my breath taken away in so many different walking places.
A GPS track from the Narratives in Space+Time public walk on December 6, 2014,
“Walking the Debris Field.” Image courtesy NiS+TS.
Did you always walk, and if not, when did you start?
Always. Walking.
If you could go anywhere in the world for a walk, where would you go?
Any loop that starts and ends with home.
Is your walking a routine, a ritual, or a wander?
All three. I commute each day on foot, and some of the artwork I do could be considered ritual. I definitely wander as well.
What does a typical day for you look like?
I walk down to the harbor to the ferry, then take the ferry across the harbour, and then walk along the boardwalk to work. I walk a lot while working, and then walk home (with another ferry ride in the middle).
Do you have a day job? How does it affect your practice?
I teach, and I can walk a lot in the course of a working day.
If you could pick any other occupation, what would it be?
Hmmm… maybe landscaping, gardening.
What do you see is the place of walking in today’s culture?
Many people will say that they love to walk, and that walking is important, but I think that fewer people walk as a regular part of daily life. It is becoming a radical practice in some ways. I participate as much as possible in forums about walkability (such as Walk21), because I see common cause with the urban planners, ecologists, health promotion workers, educators and others who believe in the centrality of walking. It is also a good opportunity to bring contemporary art making to a new audience.
Always. Walking.
If you could go anywhere in the world for a walk, where would you go?
Any loop that starts and ends with home.
Is your walking a routine, a ritual, or a wander?
All three. I commute each day on foot, and some of the artwork I do could be considered ritual. I definitely wander as well.
What does a typical day for you look like?
I walk down to the harbor to the ferry, then take the ferry across the harbour, and then walk along the boardwalk to work. I walk a lot while working, and then walk home (with another ferry ride in the middle).
Do you have a day job? How does it affect your practice?
I teach, and I can walk a lot in the course of a working day.
If you could pick any other occupation, what would it be?
Hmmm… maybe landscaping, gardening.
What do you see is the place of walking in today’s culture?
Many people will say that they love to walk, and that walking is important, but I think that fewer people walk as a regular part of daily life. It is becoming a radical practice in some ways. I participate as much as possible in forums about walkability (such as Walk21), because I see common cause with the urban planners, ecologists, health promotion workers, educators and others who believe in the centrality of walking. It is also a good opportunity to bring contemporary art making to a new audience.
Narratives in Space + Time Society is an interdisciplinary creative research group working on projects involving mobile media and walking.
Find more info on their Facebook page and their website.
Find more info on their Facebook page and their website.