Mindful Walking Project, Bristol Leigh Woods, 2019

In 2019 Anita Pepper and I organised a community art project to promote new encounters with local place, practising the principle of immediate sensory encounter or ‘Presencing’. The idea of our guided walks was to generate a flow of immediate observation, activity and reflection, drawing and writing about this and sharing our responses. Around a dozen people joined in over a series of five mornings in the Autumn and the following Spring. The project was sponsored by Bristol Ageing Better.

Leigh Woods is an ancient and beautiful woodland on the edge of Bristol, nearly big enough to get lost in. The wood vibrated with life, its wildness was awe-inspiring. The weather changed. Some new people turned up. The great old trees sheltered us in our creative moment of time and place, and everything seemed to slow down. People were excited to share their journals. Repeat visitors found their connection with the place deepening as we focussed on different senses. It was wonderful to see participants finding inspiration and community in the woods, as if a politics of nature was reaching out beyond limited notions of self and human importance. I loved the experience of sharing place, something different to tolerating others in “my” space.