About Walking About Walking

Walking with Eels by Marika Pratley is the soundtrack for cruising, lazing, leaning, a walk by Richard Orjis at 9pm on Saturday 21 November at Western Springs Park, Te Wai Orea
Drawing on queer histories of cruising for intimate encounters in parks, artist Richard Orjis invites you to gather by the Waters of the Eel, Te Wai Orea / Western Springs Park for a night time cruise. Set against a background of queer ecological thought, and bttm_ methodology, Orjis will lead a walk driven by principles of connectivity, pleasure and subversion. It will be made up of a list of fluid provocations and ethical explorations as a soft testing of the notion of being ‘passively active’ that prioritises openness, slowness and empathy. Together we will explore how passive, promiscuous, temporary and transient modes may lead to meaningful alliances and intimacies between humans and the more-than-human.

Please bring your phones, head-phones, a torch and a blanket.

An audio guided walk through the Avondale Racecourse. Starts by the 1400 mark on the inside of the race track. Map available at aboutwalking.nz

Artist Becca Wood invites you to join her at the edge of Avondale Racecourse for The Public Stand, an audio guided walk through the Racecourse grounds, which takes place as part of the performance series, About walking.

Download or stream the audio track here and bring your headphones.

The Public Stand is a choreoauratic walk that brings attention to the uncertainty of what lies ahead for the Avondale Racecourse. Wearing headphones, the participants tune in towards their moving bodies, the site, the disappearing the unseen and the unspeakable. Through walking with and listening to the site’s histories, this series reimagines lost and forgotten stories, and present and possible futures. As a collective, the audience walks together towards the unknown.

First presented on Saturday Afternoon 12 September, 2020 with live performance by Rachel Ruckstuhl-mann, Kate Bartlett and Fa’asu Afoa-Purcell.

Acknowledgements and contributions to sounds and stories:
Mandy Siitia,
Janet Charman
Lisa Truttman - Timespanner Blog
Jan Skinner - Avondale Jockey Club
Jo Smith
Greg Wood
Kathy Waghorn
All the people who walked with Wood at Avondale to gather stories on 21 June

Original sound files sourced from Ngā Taonga Sound and Vision:
World War II songs - Tuini Ngawai (Te Ope Tuatahi)
ANZAC Day Dawn Service 1956 - ‘The Last Stand’ Bugle call
Racing commentary - Syd Tonks

Becca Wood has been working for the past 23 years with performance practices that slip between bodily, spatial and digital environments. Previous works have invited participants to be active performers, exploring sites in response to pre-recorded soundtracks, instructions and spatial arrangements. To describe this practice, Becca coined the term ‘choreoauratics’. It fuses choreography and sonic investigations with philosophies of listening, the body, place, digital technologies and sociality. Choreoauratic events intervene in public spaces, working poetically towards a recovery of the imperceptible and the disappearing.