Process photo 3D of Shadow Walk by Hazel Mei.
WAPC/Walking As Practice Collective is a group of artists with an interest in traversing and transgressing through spaces and in this process rethinking and critiquing the social and ecological systems and structures we inhabit. They engage walking as an art practice and as a methodology for critical creative inquiry. While in motion, each artist is examining ways to extend agency to others, place and the more-than human through acts of relational care and as a strategy for building togetherness.
WAPC have a deep interest in methodologies that support critical discourse around the structural constraints we as artists, activists, and diverse cultural and gendered bodies each face. By doing so, they present critiques of normative structures and propose to better distribute social agency, through acts of vulnerability andtogetherness. The curatorial framework is designed to allow participating artists to influence its direction, leaning towards posthumanism and new materialism. This involves rethinking dualisms through a non-hierarchical approach
WAPC will continue to expand its public engagement through presentations, walks, and exhibitions by artists who participated in WAP. WAP considers the importance of walking as artistic research which has the capacity to explore notions of care, proximity, and ethical responsibility.
WAPC 2025
The collective was formed to support each others practices >>>
Artist active in a project we refer to as the collective its a fluid constitution derived from WAPC affiliate artist. We are interested in being part of other projects and we will during the year do projects in Sweden and else where.
WAP & WAPC
The background to WAPC is the Walking As Practice program in the form of an art residency with individual time, share sessions and walks. WAP23 and WAP24 concepts were instigated by BERG DUO. They took place in Stockholm’s Northern Archipelago, Sweden. A rural quaint setting where the forest meets the sea in the Northern Stockholm Archipelago.
The curatorial framework opens up for international participating artists to influence the direction and lean towards new materialism, rethinking dualisms through a non-hierarchal approach. Reviewing the development (share sessions, walks, and work made available to public), ”Spaces of Anticipation” is the theme for WAP24. We also foresee that after WAP24 the platform could continue to focus on aspects of artistic research at the cusp of walking and the arts. There was also a self directed Spring Edition. In 2023 the focus was on “Attentive Walking”
WAP24 – ”Spaces of Anticipation” For 2024 the format had three segments self directed various times during the spiring and then the two major parts where invited co-curators made impressions on the unfolding of each edition.
John Schuerman – JUNE EDITION
Antonia Aitken – SEPTEMBER EDITION.
WAP23 – “Attentive Walking”
More than 25 artists participated in the program in addition to temporary co-walkers and the local community. The program at BKN began in September and ended in October with 9 artists present at the time. Some for a full month and others for two weeks.
Walking became for some a critique and metaphor for boundaries that are vague in society in general and specifically so in terms what spaces are public and what are private and the line between the two are often hard to comprehend. However Public Access to land is vast in Sweden its based on the link between responsibility and rights (see link list for more on “Allemansrätten”)
* (Björkö Konstnod Björkö= Birch – Konst=Art – Nod=Node, is an not for profit organization and the studios are simply called BKN . BKN had grants from Region Stockholm and Norrtälje Municipality that covered studio costs)
WAPC – proximity through artistic expressions in the field of walking practice