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wild city | fiadh-bhaile | orasul salbatic

composition
posted on 2018-10-28, 00:00 authored by Alec Finlay, M Law
In collaboration with The Walking Library (Dee Heddon & Misha Myers), and poets Gerry Loose and Ken Cockburn, with artist Kate McAllan and photographer Mhairi Law, Alec Finlay created this artist book featuring photographic and written documentation of 'Wild City', a program of participative walks, public readings and workshops that explored encounters with the natural environment in and rewilding in an urban context, the politics of green spaces and commons, and imaginative pathways to adapt to and reverse climate breakdown. 'Wild City' was commissioned by European Championship Festival Glasgow 2018.

History

Publisher

Morning Star

Place of publication

Edinburgh, Scotland

ISBN-13

9781904477204

ISBN-10

1904477208

Language

eng

Notes

In collaboration with The Walking Library (Dee Heddon & Misha Myers), and poets Gerry Loose and Ken Cockburn, with artist Kate McAllan and photographer Mhairi Law, this artist book created by Alec Finlay features photographic and written documentation of 'Wild City', a program of participative walks, public readings and workshops that explored encounters with the natural environment in and rewilding in an urban context, the politics of green spaces and commons, and imaginative pathways to adapt to and reverse climate breakdown. 'Wild City' was commissioned by European Championship Festival Glasgow 2018.

Research statement

While walking has been an expanding field in the creative arts since the 20th century, now widely understood as a ‘true autonomous art form’ (Careri 2002: 121), its role as a mode of performance connecting people to the natural environment and to one another within an urban context is less considered. "The Walking Library for Wild City" aimed to addresses this through a form of walking art that is the first of its kind in this cross-disciplinary field and was established by Heddon and Myers in 2012 as “The Walking Library” project through a commission for the Sideways Festival in Belgium. The project has generated subsequent commissioned events and library collections curated and exhibited as place-based artworks, each original in conception and findings. The “Wild City” iteration of the project was commissioned through a competitive selection process for the European Championship Festival Glasgow 2018 attracting 47,500AUD in funding. The project was developed in collaboration with artist Alec Finlay and partnered with RSPB Glasgow Wildlife Garden Festival and Govanhill Baths, organizations both concerned with supporting diversity, that of wildlife with the first and of culture with the second. The book wild city | fiadh-bhaile | orasul salbatic was created by Alec Finlay in collaboration with The Walking Library (Dee Heddon & Misha Myers), poets Gerry Loose and Ken Cockburn, artist Kate McAllan and photographer Mhairi Law. It includes Finlay’s visual art and creative writings and Law’s photographs, which together map and document the 'Wild City' program of 8 participative performance walks and public readings created by The Walking Library for the project and workshops led by Loose and Cockburn. The book was launched in The Hidden Gardens of the international art-space Tramway.

Publication classification

J2 Minor original creative work

Editor/Contributor(s)

A Myers, D Heddon