Zone of Terrestrial Engagement

"Language is like a road, it cannot be perceived all at once because it unfolds in time, whether heard or read.”, writes Rebecca Solnit in her tome Wanderlust, on the history of walking. However long the road might be, language however, may not be the way to understand complex situations. Sometimes we have to literally just walk the road, circumvent conscious thought, and walk ourselves into understanding beyond language. 
Walking can be an act of meditation, it can be an act of political resistance, and it can be a transformative experience. To walk is to prepare to open up space in the mind, to shuttle between the real, the imagined, and the impossible with each wandering step. A distracted body, a wandering mind. For centuries philosophers have written on the value of walking, from Rousseau’s reveries to Kierkegaard’s daily health walks. Today we see walking increasingly as a political act, from collective gatherings to solitary meanderings, our bodies are compelled to walk as an act of resistance.
In this group of objects, the walking stick offers a point of departure. An array of walking sticks engraved with text fragments from Scottish anthropologist Tim Ingold’s essay on animism*, lean against the walls, asking to be brought out for a walk. Video documentation from just such a walk, which turned into a dance, with MassArt’s Experimental Ensemble is embedded in a slice of oak. Ingold’s text fragments, burned into wooden sticks, sitting alongside other man made objects, introduce a vital question to ponder on the road; does everything have a soul? Everything? He suggests: “Intuitive nonanimists have been selected out, due to unfortunate encounters with things that turned out to be more alive than anticipated.”. Grab a stick, and let that unfold as you walk about.

This project is being made by many hands. Special thanks to the following: Sincere Speciality Casting, Anneloes Van Beek, Alanna Robbins, Peter Evonuk, Daniel Wheeler,The Experimental Ensemble, Kevin Sweet, Elaine Buckholtz,Aimee Good, Jane Marsching and Ellen Miller.

Zone of Terrestrial Engagement at Alnoba in Kensington, NH

Zone of Terrestrial Engagement book ends the trail from the parking lot up to Alnoba. It provides a way to experience the landscape with the help of Walking Sticks, and guiding Path Markers along a path that was first established by the boots of the workmen who built Alnoba. This project invites inhabitants and visitors to engage with both the sculpture and the landscape as they navigate their way both to Alnoba, and back out into the world.

PATH MARKERS:

Along the path from the parking lot to Alnoba there are 8 bronze markers, cast from wood collected from the land around the Horse Trail. Fallen wood pieces were collected and carved with text from Thoreau’s Walden. The markers are placed along the path that was created when Alnoba was built, a winding, but direct path from the parking lot through the woods, up to the site. Each marker contains a phrase from this excerpt from Walden:

“I AM ALARMED WHEN IT HAPPENS THAT I HAVE WALKED A MILE INTO THE WOODS BODILY, WITHOUT GETTING THERE IN SPIRIT. IN MY AFTERNOON WALK I WOULD FAIN FORGET ALL MY MORNING. BUT IT SOMETIMES HAPPENS THAT I CANNOT EASILY SHAKE OFF THE VILLAGE. THE THOUGHT OF SOME WORK WILL RUN IN MY HEAD AND I AM NOT WHERE MY BODY IS— I AM OUT OF MY SENSES.

IN MY WALKS I WOULD FAIN RETURN TO MY SENSES. WHAT BUSINESS HAVE I IN THE WOODS, IF I AM THINKING OF SOMETHING OUT OF THE WOODS? I SUSPECT MYSELF, AND CANNOT HELP A SHUDDER WHEN I FIND MYSELF SO IMPLICATED EVEN IN WHAT ARE CALLED GOOD WORKS— FOR THIS MAY SOMETIMES HAPPEN.”

WALKING STICKS:

Text fragments of an essay on animism and the landscape by Scottish Anthropologist Tim Ingold are inscribed into 100 walking sticks collected from the Alnoba environs. Fragments such as, “ALONG WITH OPENNESS COMES VULNERABILITY”, and “OBSERVATION DEPENDS ON PARTICIPATION” are inscribed using a technique called pyrography, or wood burning. Each stick was collected on site, some from the trees that were cut down for the parking lot expansion, and others from sites off trails such as the witch hazel grove, and other trails. The Walking Sticks are intended to be used by guests to get from one end of the trail to the other.

STRUCTURES:

At both end of the trail there are 9’ long, 4’ tall bronze structures, made from fallen wood collected from the site, and cast into bronze. The structures are simple lean-to like forms intended to hold many walking sticks.