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AV FESTIVAL 12: WALKS
Thu 15 March 2012 – Sat 31 March 2012
The Festival included six artist-led walks, taking us on different, slow journeys across time and space, with Hamish Fulton, Iain Sinclair, Tim Brennan, Chris Watson, Laura Harrington and Mike Collier.
The series included urban walks in Middlesbrough, Sunderland and Newcastle, and rural walks in Teesside and Upper Teesdale nature reserves, reflecting the industrial and natural heritage of the region.
The walks culminated in an unmissable large-scale mass participation Slowalk at Spillers Wharf on Newcastle’s Quayside with Hamish Fulton, which marked the end of the Festival.
172 people took part in Slowalk, the experience was enjoyed by the majority who felt it gave them the opportunity to take part in an innovative art event. One participant said: “There was both a feeling of being a small part of a communal experience and times when I felt very much absorbed and almost as if there on my own.”
Hamish Fulton: Slowalk
Sat 31 March 2012, 1–3pm
Spillers WharfFor the finale of AV Festival 12, this leading British artist devised one of his legendary slow walks for Newcastle. Since the 1960s, Hamish Fulton has produced... more
Iain Sinclair: Middlesbrough Talk
Thu 15 March 2012, 6–7.30pm
mima, Middlesbrough Institute of Modern ArtIain Sinclair is a leading writer, filmmaker, poet and psychogeographer...more
Chris Watson: Teesside Sound Walk
Sat 24 March 2012, 11am–3.30pm
Seal Sands Nature ReserveChris Watson is one of the world’s greatest sound recordists, famed for capturing the natural... more
Laura Harrington: Layerscape (peat bogs)
Sun 18 March 2012, 11am–4pm
Upper Teesdale National Nature ReserveThis peatlands walk led to a bothy screening of the film Layerscape, created collaboratively by... more
Mike Collier: Street Flowers – Urban Survivors of the Privileged Land
Sun 25 March 2012, 7.30am–11am
River WearThis circular walk with artist Mike Collier and natural historian... more
Tim Brennan: Taking Coals to Sunderland
Sat 24 March 2012, 10pm–6am
Colliery InnOver the past 20 years, Tim Brennan has developed a walking-based art practice he refers to as ‘the manouvre’. Following... more



