News
Abstract Landscape Course at Newlyn School of Art, 1 - 4 October 2024
Futhering my exploration of landscape through drawing and paiting in October I joined the Abstract Landscape Course in Cornwall taught by artist Anita Reynolds.
The course was divided between gathering information outside in the stunning coastal and moorland landscape of Cornwall and developing sketches and ideas back in the studio. We had a wide range of materials, tools and surfaces at our disposal and were encouraged to work in a wide variety of sizes from small intimate studies to large-scale dynamic paintings. Anita shared her methods and use of composition, colour, tone and form, which we then applied our own experimental work. I was particularly pleased with the progress I made with colour.
Image credit: 'Field', Cape Cornwall by Louise Ann Wilson
‘Bohemiae Rosa’ Czech Republic, 26 - 31 August 2024
In August 2024 I joined a week-long Body Weather Work workshop led by Frank van de Ven and Milos Sejn in the Lusatian Mountains, Czech Republic.
This International Interdisciplinary Open–Air Workshop was for artists and dancers who explore the relation between body, art and landscape. It gave me the opportunity to learn new skills and techniques and experiemnt with my used of the body, landspcae and drawing in my practice as well as my use of the camera and film making.
Image credit: still from 'Becoming Rock: Jitrava' a film by Louise Ann Wilson.
‘Standing, Walking, Seeing’ Japan-Britain Contemporary Theatre Exchange, Lancaster Uni., 13 November
I was delighted to talk about my recent body-landscape-drawing work as aprt of the Japan-Britain Contemporary Theatre Exchange (spin-off) roundtable event a Lancaster University, 13 November 2024.
The round table followed a workshop 'Presence and Perception' and the performance ‘See a Porous Stone’ by performance artists Takuya Takemoto (Tokyo, Japan).
The theme of this gathering is Standing, Walking, Seeing. It considered the mundane, everyday activities of standing and walking as a performance and asked what it means when a person stands in front of a person? When we walk, how do we perceive our surroundings?
The Roundtable ‘Walking, Standing, Seeing – perspectives on live art and contemporary dance from Britain and Japan’ inclued presentation and reflection from Nigel Stewart (Senior Lecturer, Lancaster University), Louise Ann Wilson (performance maker and scenographer), Yurika Kuremiya (independent researcher, curator, dramaturg, Tokyo), Beri Juraic (PhD Candidate in Theatre, Lancaster University), Takuya Takemoto (performance artist, Tokyo). It was chaired by Karen Jürs-Munby (Senior Lecturer, Lancaster University).
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.
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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.
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#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’
