Walking as a Creative Practice
Walking as a Creative Practice
Our creative process takes on many forms.
Walking as a practice, as an act of transformation.
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Walking* can be an amazingly transformative act. Many cultures have traditions of walking meditations, and throughout history many artists and thinkers have deemed walking practices critical to their creativity. Together, we will explore ways to bring mindfulness and creativity to the practice, tuning into our immediate surroundings and creating work.
*Note that walking is used as an umbrella term to mean moving or journeying in various forms. This course welcomes persons with disabilities or those with limited mobility to participate.
[text pulled from class description. / Rhode Island School of Design CE course 2022 / Instructor: Sally Bozzuto]
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Each week will focus on a different physical sense or medium (sight, sound, video, physical sensation, smell, taste) and use mindfulness activities to sharpen observation skills as a jumping off point for the creative exercises.
[text pulled from class description. / Rhode Island School of Design CE course 2022 / Instructor: Sally Bozzuto]
Sight
Taste
Most every walk I end up with an iced coffee at some point.
Inspired by this experience, the sense, the everyday repetition, I replaced my shadows [here in the digital short on the left] with iced coffee.
Sound
I collected different sounds from different walks over 1 week by recording videos on my phone. Then, I used Adobe Premiere Pro to edit and overlay the sounds alongside their corresponding video visuals to create the work above.
Scent
Interpreting the physical sensation of “scent” was the last week and the most challenging for me.
At first, I created a series of paper collages using shape cut-outs to create a flip-book style animation. I wanted to be able to capture or project the sensation of the smell summer walks hold. I wasn’t happy with collage piece.
That week I also picked up a roll of film I had developed from a recent trip I took that summer to Cape Cod. The film stills were perfect background visuals to my collage animation. Merging these 2 mediums together, I feel it succeeded in embodying the scent of summer for me.
Scent
How’d I get here?
Paper Cut-outs / TOSCA Paint Pens / Collage / Procreate