News

Walking the Menopause: Kendal Castle - REVISED DATE 11 November 2023

To celebrate World Menopause Day on Saturday 11 November 2023, I will be leading a 'Menopause Mapping Walk' for the South Lakes Menopause and Wellbeing Hub. Please join if you can.

We will be starting out from Abbot Hall in Kendal we will walk to Kendal Castle where, each participant, will explore the site through the lens of peri/menopause by noticing and absorbing its walls, views, dungeons and paths in relation your own experiences. 

Whatever your relationship to the menopause – you might be peri, in the middle of, or postmenopausal, or you might be the friend, partner or colleague of someone else who is – you will be invited to make site-specific connects that are unique to you.

After spending approximately an hour at the castle we will walk to The Bakery at No.4 in Kendal where, paper and pens will be provided for you to draw a 'menopause-map' – using words, symbols, colours, shapes and line – of the castle and your reflections and discoveries.

 

Meeting location: Abbot Hall (meet in the courtyard at the front)

Ending location: The Bakery at No.4.

Start time: 12 o’clock.

End time: 2.30pm approx. with coffee (not included) and chat at the end.

Tickets are free, however, booking is necessary as numbers are limited.

Walking the Menopause: Farleton Knott and Year-Long Walking Programme

In recent months I have been leading one-to-one and small group menopause walks. I have now drafted a year-long programme of monthly walks starting in late August. These will take place in the Lakeland Fells, the Yorkshire Dales, the Bowland Fells, along the River Lune (from source to sea) and in Lancashire.

You will soon be able to find more information and how to book a place on these walks on the Walking the Menopauase project page of this website.

Emplacing Life-Events in Peel Park: Mapping Workshop

On 20th July, as part of a two day event called Wild Wanderings and Creative Cultivations, I led a mapping-walk workshop in Peel Park, Salford.

The workshop was designed to engage participant in the process of emplacing a life-event, circumstance or real-world situation of their own concerns in the park. These concerns could be of personal, social, environmental, or ecological significance and were informed by the possibilities, landscapes and ecologies of the park.

Prague Quadrennial Best Book Award and Paperback Version of ‘Sites of Transformation’ Coming Soon

In June I spent time at the Prague Quadrennial where, alongside the other 'PQ Best Publication Award'  shortlisted authors, I gave a presentation about Sites of Transformation. 

Though I did not win, that honour went to10 Together: Performances by Longva+Carpenter 2010-2020, which, by the way, is a beautiful publication showcasing their stunning work, I received a huge amount of positive feedback on my talk and a lot of interest in the book. 

On the 24 August 2023, Sites of Transformation will be published in paperback - making it much more affordable to buy!! Please consider purchasing a copy if you are able. 
 

Re-figuring the Sublime: Duddon Day and Dorothy Wordsworth Talk

on 12 June 2023, I joined a party of artists and spent a day following the River Duddon from its source in the Lakes District Fells. The day was organised by Pip Wallace and Rebecca Seymour (Wallace Seymour) who have created a new series of art materials made from pigments found in the Duddon Valley, Cumbria.

Travelling by a Mountain Goat minibus, the group travelled the length of the valley from source to sea stopping at locations en route where we drew the landscape using paint, charcoal and pastel.  At one location – Wallabarrow Bridge – I gave a talk about the Seven ‘Scenographic’ Principles I apply when creating site-specific walking-performance and, using examples, how these principles are influenced by Dorothy Wordsworth’s journal writing.

In three other sites the choreographer/dance artists Nigel Stewart and Julia Griffin performed movement interventions informed by that location and William Wordsworth's Duddon Sonnets. 

Walking the Menopause: Scout Scar - Mapping-walk, International Women’s Day 2023

As part of a day of events organised by the South Lakes Menopause and Wellbeing Hub I led a Walking the Menopause mapping-walk on Scout Scar, Kendal.

Following a pre-planned route and stopping at ‘stations’ and transition places enroute, the walk invited participants to tune into the landscape and environmental forces and use them as a metaphorical means by which to reflect-upon their own experiences of peri/menopause. It ended with a menopause-mapping drawing exercise.

This scoping walk, like a few others I have led in recent months, was a great success. Funding allowing, the plan going forward is to create a series of site- and person-specific peri/menopause walks across The Lakeland Fells, Yorkshire Dales, The Bowland Fells, Morecambe Bay, and beyond in towns and cities. 

More news on Walking the Menopause and how to get involved, as well as another new project coming soon.

Tell it to the Bees in SBTD’s ‘hello stranger’ publication

Tell it to the Bees included in the Society of British Theatre Designers hello stranger: UK Performance Design 2019-2023 publication.

Published by Performance Research Books and featuring 100 designers and collectives, the hello stranger catalogue has been curated to chronicle the diverse ways in which performance design has been realised in and beyond the UK from 2019 to 2023.

Sites of Transformation Shortlisted PQ Best Publication Award

I am delighted to let you know that Sites of Transformation (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2022) has been shortlisted for the Prague Quadrennial’s Best Publication Award 2023. The final selection contains 9 competing titles.

“The 9 shortlisted publications are truly rare in more than one way. They cross borders between countries, cultures, and times; they bring fresh insights into diverse scenographic practices; and they are beautiful artefacts in their own right.” says Pavel Drábek, the curator of the project. “These books were published across more than 10 countries from all around the world, often straddling national and cultural borders and bringing together artists, practitioners, scholars and arts, practices and knowledges of an amazing width. While PQ Best Publication Award in Performace Design & Secenography 2023 is a competition, we wish it to be first and foremost an opportunity to share knowledge, promote good work, and cultivate our global scenographic communities. We believe that while competitions may make good business, they don’t always make good societies. It is our hope that all the publications submitted to this PQ programme’s call help to make good company of artists, practitioners, scholars, and other lovers of scenography and performance design.” (PQ, Best Publication Award).

In their summary of the book, the PQ Best Publication 2023 Jury: Donatella Barbieri, Pavel Drábek, Aziza Kadyri, say, "Louise Ann Wilson's elegant Sites of Transformation: Applied and Socially Engaged Scenography in Rural Landscapes (Bloomsbury), a book built upon a variety of public scenographic and performative interventions that brought together audiences and participants in unexpected places and unexpected ways." Click here for more information.

Walking the Menopause: Scout Scar

On International Women’s Day March 8th, 2023 I will be leading a Walking the Menopause mapping-walk on Scout Scar, Kendal.

Following a pre-planned route and stopping at ‘stations’ and transition places enroute, the walk will invite participants to tune into the landscape and environmental forces using them as a metaphorical means by which to reflect-upon their own experiences of peri/menopause. It will end with a menopause-mapping exercise (materials will be provided).

The first in a series, this preliminary/scoping walk will then be developed into a walk that others can participate in and will form the centre of a web of peri/menopause walks created across The Lakeland Fells, Yorkshire Dales, The Bowland Fells, Morecambe Bay and beyond.

 

Meeting Place: Scout Scar carpark (there are 2 carparks very close to each other. If driving up from Kendal, we will set off from the first carpark). 

Satnav: LA8 8HA.

Terrain: undulating rough ground with descents and ascent. 

Gear: Please wear walking boots or shoes and dress for the weather. It is forecast to be cold with the possibility of snow, so wrap up warm and bring an extra jumper, waterproofs, a hat and gloves.

Please bring a warm drink and a few snacks.

The walk will only be cancelled if the weather is dangerous (i.e., high winds, flooding, thunder & lightning, poor visibility, or very heavy rain/snow). 

Please note, I am leading the walk as an individual artist, all participants are responsible for their own safety, and join the walk at their own risk. 

Walks to Remember - The Walkbook: Recipes for Walking & Wellbeing

My Memory-Walk Recipe, 'Walks to Remember: 'With memory I was there'', features in The Walkbook: Recipes for Walking and Wellbeing, pages 61-3.

Published by Walking Publics/Walking Arts in May 2022, this collection of 30 walking recipes created by artists is full of creatvie ideas to help the reader walk, whatever their circumstances.

#WalkCreate Gathering: ‘Walks to Remember’ Walkshops & Recipe

Walks to Remember : Walkshops & Recipe
#WalkCreate Gathering
18 & 19 May 2022 in London and online

This week, on Day 1 of the #WalkCreate Gathering, I am leading two Walks to Remember: 'With Memory I was there' memory-mapping/walking walkshops.

#WalkCreate shares and celebrates the use of creative walking to enhance wellbeing and community during Covid-19, and beyond. The Gathering is free to attend (for all or part of a day), and there will be complimentary refreshments and lunch available to those who can make it in person.

To see the schedule, line-up and to book tickets, please go to this web page.

On Day 2 of the gathering, #WalkCreate will launch The Walkbook: Recipes for walking and wellbeing. This hot-off-the-press publication contains 30 recipes to support readers to walk during a pandemic and beyond it, indoors and out. 

Each recipe --- including my 'walks to remember' memory-mapping/walking recipe --- has been devised by an artist and aims to inspire and entice. The collection invites readers to surprise themselves, see their local environment anew, leave messages for others, pause between steps...​

‘A Place that Stands Apart’: The Performance of Sacred Spaces

My chapter, ‘A Place that Stands Apart: Emplacing, re-imaging and transforming life-events through walking-performance in rural landscapes', is now published in The Performance of Sacred Places: Crossing, Breathing, Resisting, edited by Silvia Batista and published in 2021 by Intellect, Bristol.

Wild Woman Press

Wild Woman Web Spinners 2022: Thread 42 - Sites of Transformation

Mulliontide: Centring People and Place

On Saturday 5 March 2022, at the ‘Connecting Coastal Heritage, Communities and Climate Change’ conference, I will be making a presentation called 'Mulliontide: Centring People and Place'.

My presentation is part of the panel entitled 'The inevitability of loss: How understanding the historic/natural environment can help adapt to loss?' and explores the making, performing and impact of Mulliontide, a coastal performance-walk from Poldhu Cove to Mullion Cove that I created in Cornwall in 2016.

The conference is curated and produced by CITiZAN.

Sites of Transformation: Applied and Socially Engaged Performance in Rural Landscapes

NEW BOOK - PUBLISHED BY BLOOMSBURY METHUEN, 24 FEB 2022

In Sites of Transformation practitioner and researcher Louise Ann Wilson examines the expanding field of socially engaged scenography and the development of scenography as a distinctive type of applied art and performance practice that seeks tangible, therapeutic, and transformative real-world outcomes.

Using case-studies drawn from the body of site-specific walking-performances she has created in the UK over the last decade, Wilson demonstrates how she uses scenography to emplace challenging, marginalizing or ‘missing’ life-events into rural landscapes – creating a site of transformation – in which participants can reflect-upon, re-image, re-imagine their relationship to their circumstances. 

 

Discount code (when purchasing on Bloomsbury.com): UK: GLR 9XLUK 

Walks to Remember During a Pandemic in #WalkCreate Digital Gallery

Walks to Remember During a Pandemic: ‘With memory I was there’ is featured in Gallery 1 of the #WalkCreate Digital Gallery 

 

 

 

This virtual gallery has been curated as part of the Walking Publics/Walking Arts project led by Professor Dee Heddon with Professor Maggie O’Neill, Dr. Morag Rose, Clare Qualmann and Dr. Harry Wilson.

 

Illustration: Awena Carter’s Walk Around the Cwm: ‘To Walk was My Delight’ 

 

Tell it to the Bees - exhibition

Tell it to the Bees to be exhibited in Opening Up: Threads and Beelines

6-11 December 2021 at Maketank in Exeter
5 Paris Street, Exeter, EX1 2JB

 

Please join me – and the Outside the Box: Open-Air Performance as a Pandemic Response team – for the opening reception at 4pm on Sunday 5 December

I am delighted to be exhibiting Tell it to the Bees alongside the work of artist Elizabeth Philps.

Outside the Box was initiated as a response to the Covid-19 pandemic, and a desire to celebrate open air, environmentally engaged, in-person assembly through performance practice.

Tell it to the Bees

Tell it to the Bees  is a new honeybee-inspired walking-performance specifically created for Exeter city centre this August. 

In a small group of no more than 18 people, Tell it to the Bees will start by introducing you to the honeybees in their hives on the roof of the Princesshay Shopping Centre and the age old practice telling your troubles and hopes to the bees. From there you will be led on a route through the city centre pausing at a number of locations where through words, music, film and actions time and space will be created to reflect upon the relevance of these traditions to experiences during the Covid-19 Pandemic and our recovery from it. 

Tell it to the Bees features the Exeter based musician Roz Harding.

 

Dates: Friday, 13th of August and Saturday, 14th of August.

The show runs once on Friday at 2:00pm and twice on Saturday at 10:30am and 2:00pm. The performance will be approx. 2 hours.

Tickets are free but advanced booking is necessary.

Exhibition - Lockdown in Lancaster and Morecambe:  Walk, Run, Pedal, Push, Map

Lockdown in Lancaster and Morecambe:  Walk, Run, Pedal, Push, Map is now being exhibited at the Peter Scott Gallery, Lancaster University, Lancaster. Projected over two PPE intensive care gowns suspended in the space, the map makes visible the paths we followed from 16 March (start of national lockdown) to the end of July 2020. It builds week by week and shows how our routes accumulated and grew over that period of time.
 
Tickets are free but due to Social Distancing booking is required. Please visit: www.lancasterarts.org

The exhibition is temporarily CLOSED due to the Covid 19 Lockdown.

This is part of Lancaster Arts Walking/Moving/Seeing project in the Breathing Space programme.

 

Lockdown in Lancaster and Morecambe:  Walk, Run, Pedal, Push, Map

Are you discovering new places and routes to walk, run, pedal or push due to the current stay at home restrictions we are experiencing due to COVID-19? Places and routes that give you a breathing space – mentally, spiritually and physically? If so, please record them and add them to a new artwork, Lockdown in Lancaster and Morecambe: Walk, Run, Pedal, Push, Map

Since the Lockdown, I have been running and walking every day from home. Gradually, I have found and followed new paths that have taken me to parts of Lancaster that I didn’t know were there! I am not alone in these findings and revelations – lots of others have told me they are doing exactly the same as me. Whether it be on foot or bicycle, with pushchair or wheelchair we are still venturing out from home. Those who can’t leave the house, move very far or easily are walking indoors, in yards, squares, gardens, streets and parks. These shorter routes are just as important.

So, can you start recording your favourite lockdown walks and share them with me?

All of the mapped routes will be combined in to a single Lockdown in Lancaster and Morecambe: Walk, Run, Pedal, Push, Map map. This map will then become a bespoke artwork that abstracts and stitches the routes and paths into a made-at-home PPE intensive care gown.

Submitting your route is simple, you can do so either electronically or by hand. Find out how and more here.   

This project is part of Lancaster Arts Breathing Space Programme.