Walking A/r/tography through creative phenomenological wanderings

As an artist who seeks creativity as a way of being in the world, Movimento is my current creative project, an exploration in a wandering-ology. In the spirit of Heidegger and Husserl, our sense of dwelling is not limited to interiors; rather it includes community, place, time, and the continuous interactions between all of those.  Thus movement is intrinsic to being, and particularly when creativity is an expression of being (for the artist) such wandering can dramatically enhance our sense of perception and awareness.

I have embarked upon this creative journey in movement through creating and discovering swirling designs photographed here with the intention to unfold and manipulate motion/al imagery in a variety of ways over the next year, a time in which I anticipate my own embodied movement across three different continents. Often this expression is through the Celtic triskele, the ancient mark of my ancestors that to me symbolizes motion through time as well as space.  I seek to utilize materials that are near to hand in the natural or built landscapes, to neither add unnatural debris nor deplete needed resources (no matter how minor it might seem).  I cherish the ethic and the idea that my artistic creation will make no more difference than the scampers of a squirrel across the forest floor.

I have made a case for embodied data collection through walking and wandering as supported by phenomenology as a philosophical framework and a research methodology.  Here, I turn these underpinnings towards creative processes that rely upon the body to perceive, conceive, and generate a visual expression of movement through space, to temporarily make manifest the fleeting gestures of motion.


This journey, this creative quest, begins in New Orleans and extends through Galveston Island, Barcelona, Idaho, and Australia.

​All text, artwork, and images © Lucy Bartholomee