Walking as an Art Form and Community Practice
The Maine-Greenland Collaborations project integrates walking to comprehend local ecologies and experience the relationship of individuals and their communities to each other and the environment. The walks taken in Maine and Greenland, are seen in the context of art and community practice.
Walking as an artform takes place in a variety of ways. For some, the act of moving the body through space is seen as the artform itself. Others make their experiences of walking tangible through writing or creating physical forms. Walking connects the body with the mind and allows walkers to explore internal and external pathways often to connect with something larger than themselves. When practiced with other people walking can build relationships and cultivate community.
Five group walks below took place between 2020 and 2025 on Long Island and Sears Island, Maine and in Qassiarsuk, South Greenland. The goal was to heighten awareness of social and environmental ecologies and pique interest in land conservation and cultural preservation. The walks were also meant to be aesthetic experiences. Participants were asked to collect data as artists do (through the senses) and engage in creative work to process their experiences of the walks. This included producing photographs, drawings, collages and written reflections.
Qassiarsuk Drift
Ogunquit Drift
Members of the Maine-Greenland project participated in a study of the sheep farming region of Qassiarsuk, South Greenland in June of 2023. We stayed at the residence of Ellen and Carl Fredericksen on a sheep farm established 100 years ago by Carl’s Grandfather. The lambing season had just closed, and the ewes and lambs had been turned out to free-range in the surrounding hills.
Our host Ellen knows native Greenlandic plants and took us on a day-long walk in the hills above the farm to identify vegetation. Plants are an integral part of the farmers’ lives, and the walk deepened our relationship with Ellen and the Qassiarsuk landscape. In addition to being food for sheep, many plants are used for medicinal purposes and in food preparation.
Maine-Greenland Collaborators walked the gravel road to Tasiusak and the Sermilik Fjord on June 10th, 2022.
Video Credit: Samantha Comeau
Trek Map: Izaak Onos and Vinton Valentine
This writing and walking journey occurred at the Ogunquit Museum of American Art. It began inside with a gathering by Long Island Drift, the mixed media installation done for the Shifting Sands exhibition. Participants then explored the vistas and vantage points of the exhibition and museum grounds with intervals of writing and sharing experiences.
Prompts for writing included:
What is your experience of this journey?
What do you bring with you?
What is journeying outside of you (in your immediate environment or the world)?
What is your experience of the people journeying with you or around you?
Long Island Drift
A public walk offered in cooperation with PLATFORM PROJECTS/WALKS & SPEEDWELL PROJECTS & MAINE-GREENLAND COLLABORATIONS took place on September 19, 2020.
Photo Credit: Julie Poitras-Santos
Tasiusak Trek
Sears Island Walks
The Sears Island Walks were part of an arts-based retreat and workshop offered in conjunction with the Intersecting Ecologies exhibit. The island is the largest undeveloped, uninhabited, causeway-accessible island in the Northeast and was originally called Wassumkeag by the Wabanaki people, and is now called Wasumkik, meaning “bright sand beach.”
With years of proposed development projects (and most recently a proposed wind port) Sears Island mirrors the tension between culture, commerce and conservation as we face changing social conditions and a changing environment. The walks brought together 40 participants, including artists, economists, environmentalists, labor specialists and representatives from different cultural and spiritual traditions to participate in discourse surrounding the island and its future. Later in the day the walkers participated in a collage workshop as a way to process and express their experiences of the island.
As part of the program Maine guide Cloe Chunn provided an overview of the natural features of the island and then retreat participants chose a walk from one of four options: walking with a focus on natural features; walking with a focus on potential industrial development; doing a self-guided tour based on the Friends of Sears Island map; drifting with no particular destination in mind.
The following photographs were taken by walkers.
