The WAP26 program turned nomadic as we walk the Stockholm Archipelago in the imaginary footsteps of Peter Weiss, in tandem with Gloria Anzaldúa, Bing Song, Paola Bacchetta and Karen Barad. WAP26 frames walking towards political aesthetics, incorporating approaches of entanglement, proximity and becoming. Dissemination of the program will be held as a two day public event in Stockholm with exhibition of wip, walks and talks. Walking as Social Imagination as a way of being with the landscape and each others practices.







APPLICATION INSTRUCTIONS

The theme of the edition, ie entanglement and proximity and being in a nomadic state with other artists. Application will remain open until July 18, however the review process has started. WAP is a process-based art residency where we delve into each others knowledges and things we encounter together.

In the week passed July 18 will have a meet and greet session online (more on this as you are confirmed), we will provide a general packing list, tentative route etc.

Apply by sending an email to wapc @ walkingaspractice.org (remove gaps around @)
Subject: WAP26 application.

BODY TEXT: please write your name where you depart from and if you have any specific concerns. Please also copy bio and website/social media link directly into body text

PDF ATTACHMENT, please make it into 1 document

PAGE 1
1) Short bio, website/social media link
2) How your practice connect your WAP26 and what you would like to explore/share/work on.

PAGE 2-3
About your practice with ref images

For WAP26 we can not be more than 20 walking artists.




WAP26 Preliminary Dates:
We are three from the WAP Cohort that will stewart WAP26 in the archipelago. The ferries stop running by August 16th. In Sweden schools start in the following week, so with this the archipelago will be less crowded but services still open.

Arrival to Stockholm: You need to arrive no later than the day before the first walk day. If earlier we can do some Stockholm walks together.

Meet and greet: early evening prior first day of walking

First day of walking: Aug 4-6 (will be decided shortly), departing in early morning from Stockholm.

Island walk: We spend 5 nights in the archipelago 5 nights (focusing on the outer south and mid Stockholm Archipelago. Parts of our walks might be along the SAT trail. south Nåttarö to northern mid Finnahamn >>>
Accommodation: you bring your own tent etc. (Allemansrätten or campgrounds)
Main feature is that we will be in a nomadic state,.

We expect max number of tents to not more than 7. Tents for 1-3 people is ideal. This as we might not be using campgrounds but rather settings we find suitable. We will go to islands where one is allowed to pitch tent. Our washing up we do in the sea. There will be toilets, small stores etc along our way. Most of the time we will try to be close to existing fire pits. But it might be that we have to bring our own cooking equipment. The long weather forecast looks promising. The goal is to get everything in to a smal backpack @35 liter. We will move in the southern and mid Stockholm Archipelago.

Information session for selected artists will take place in the week post July 18.
I the prepatory sessions you can find your tent and cooking pal. This way you dont have to carry as much. There will be storage opportunity for you in Stockholm. You are responsible for your own costs ie public transportation (metro/bus/boat) and your select accommodation during your stay in Stockholm.

Walking Area: Stockholm Archipelago, we start and end in central Stockholm.
Selection: open call and invitation

Funding/cost:  we walk for free, but you are responsible for your own costs.
Curated/organized by:
Anna Viola Hallberg (se) and Janice Jensen (de)
Selection Committee: Curators + former WAP artist Jūratė Girdvainienė (li) who will also join WAP26.


CURATORIAL FRAMEWORK
WAP26 entanglement and proximity.
Since 2023 we do the WAP yearly program for self identifying walking artists where the selection is via an open call. WAP26 is a nomadic, walking-based program that unfolds through movement by boat, bus, rowing boat, and on foot.

+ WAP26 Meet and greet in Stockholm, Aug 3-4, tba
+ Departure in the morning of August 4 or 5, tba
+ Nomadic in Stockholm archipelago (cost @ 50-70 euro for public transportation)
+ Dissemination in Stockholm, Aug 11 or 12
+ Farewell + additional walking (Öja/Landsort or Stockholm): tbd

Links to Stockholm Archipelago etc

Allemansrätten/The Right of Public Access >>>
Stockholm Archipelago Trail >>>
Explore Stockholm Archipelago >>>
Ferry Transit Map >>>
Archipelago Forecast >>>
WAP23-25 Research Catalogue >>>


On Peter Weiss
In Peter Weiss debut Från ö till ö (1947) the ‘I’ travels from island to island as a castaway. The island here can signify, or work as a synecdoche for exile and the feeling of isolation that exile often induces.
Peter Weiss (Wiki) >>>
Exhibition in Stockholm @ Bonniers Konsthall >>>

More about the curatorial positioning.

Along this shifting trajectory, participants engage with walks informed by scores and other points of departure, foregrounding entanglement and proximity as both method and condition. Walking is framed as a practice of presence, attention, and relationality, deliberately resisting mastery, linearity, and spectacle.

After three years where the artists had their own studio on Björkö in the northern Stockholm archipelago, WAP26 signals a deliberate methodological shift. The project abandons a stable geographic anchoring in favor of a nomadic mode of operation, positioning transience as both an epistemic method and a political condition. Traversing the landscape we will take turn leading walks influenced by one’s practice and the curatorial position of walking approached as a form of situated attention – an embodied way of encountering territory, history, and power under conditions of rupture and uncertainty.

Traversing these landscapes surfaces questions of privilege, embodied knowledge, ethical engagement, fragmented proximities, and historical sensitivity. From a new materialist perspective, walking is a mode of engagement that situates bodies, places, and others in ethical and relational co-becomings, challenging conventional paradigms of control, productivity, and visual consumption while privileging situated, transformative experience.

WAP26 articulates walking as a critical, situated practice of relational engagement under conditions of geopolitical and ecological urgency. Framed as a political aesthetic practice forged in a world defined by rupture rather than stability, proximity is understood not as mere nearness but as an ethical and political condition through which bodies encounter landscape, history, power, and environmental precarity. Walking functions simultaneously as method and statement: a mode of inquiry attentive to interruption, displacement, and instability, producing embodied, partial, and contingent forms of knowledge.

Through sustained engagement with sites marked by fragmentation and historical discontinuity, WAP26 positions walking as a methodological and aesthetic practice that privileges presence, relationality, and ethical attentiveness over representation, mastery, or fixed territorial claims.

WAP26 frames walking towards political aesthetic. It incorporates approaches of entanglement and co-becomings. Walking becomes method, medium, and statement – a practice of presence that resists mastery, ownership, and spectacle. From a new materialist lens, walking is a practice of engagement. Participation is grounded in shared presence, contribution, and collective engagement facilitated by walking and talking together. It connects body, place, and others in ways that are ethical, relational, and transformative, challenging conventional ideas of control, productivity, and visual consumption. Together we walk in the imaginary footsteps of Peter Weiss in tandem with Gloria Anzaldúa, Bing Song, Paola Bacchetta and Karen Barad through the archipelago of Stockholm, Sweden. Download application kit for full information and curatorial framework.

Auto translation of the first two pages in Peter Weiss From Island to Island .
To be added >>>

Text on walking in works of Peter Weiss
To be added >>>

PARTNER
We are proud to have been selected a node in the WALC Together Network consisting of collectives, organisations, and venues that bring the spirit of WALC into their own communities, linking local voices to the Prespa Encounters while extending the dialogue across Europe and beyond. We are asked to to a Café session for Andrew Stuck during WAP26.

More about partners

WALC
Walking Arts and Local Communities Nodes organize walks, workshops, artistic actions, and online exchanges that resonate with the themes of WALC – collective imagination, ecology, community and resilience.

“Once grounded in individual gestures, modernist spatial explorations, and aesthetic abstraction, walking as a creative practice has expanded into a socially and ecologically interconnected discipline. No longer merely about the artist’s personal journey or conceptual spatial intervention, walking arts now embrace relationality, political awareness, technological  hybridity, and often cross disciplinary boundaries.” Geert Vermeire – WALC, Walking Arts and Local Communities >>>

WALC/Walking Arts and Local Communities is making an extensive course starting in spring of 2006 “An online course for walking and creating together” more on the link >>>


WAP THEMES

WAP26 – Entanglement and Proximity
WAP25 –Waking As Passion – Embodied Thinking
WAP24 –Spaces of Anticipation
WAP23 – Attentive Walking

For more visit WAP/WAPC on main page >>>

contact: wapc – at – walkingaspractice.org