The Beaux-Arts de Paris are organising an afternoon of study on the subject of walking and the representation of the territory by artists and researchers.
The invitation, extended to Hamish Fulton in conversation with Muriel Enjalran, director of the Frac Sud and curator of the Hamish Fulton exhibition, A walking artist, in 2023, and historian Antoine de Baecque (ENS-PSL), will provide food for thought for a project of ephemeral works at Lil'ô (a former wasteland on the Ile Saint-Denis) run by the Burki and Sarcevic studios in conjunction with the Fresco & Arts en situation programme.

Hamish Fulton, born in London in 1946, is a "walking artist", considered to be one of the leading exponents of conceptual art. Since the end of the 1960s, he has engaged in long walks, conceived as performative acts. He has completed several hundred walks, alone or in groups, covering thousands of kilometres, which he sees as sculptures in motion in the landscapes he crosses. He never leaves his notebook and camera to immortalise the experience he has had over the thousands of kilometres he has walked, and incorporates his walks into a variety of objects such as assemblages of texts and photographs, drawings, as well as artist's books, public readings and mural paintings and vinyls that bear witness to a deep respect for nature and an awareness of ecological issues.

What does walking do to thinking? Antoine de Baecque, a great walker, both in the city and in the mountains, and a film historian (ENS-PSL), will give an account of the experience of walking in the formation of his thought. Following on from Écrivains randonneurs (Omnibus, 2014), la Traversée des Alpes, essai d'histoire marchée (Gallimard, 2015), and Une histoire de la marche (Perrin, 2016), he will be looking at the way in which writing relates to walking. How does this sensitive apprehension enable us to write a narrative in the present based on traces of nature or human activity? How does walking become an experience that opens up new perspectives in the discovery of the world around us or of unexplored territories?

Programme

Thursday 4 April 2024, 14:00, Amphi du mûrier

2.00 pm: Welcome
2.15pm: Introduction by Marie José Burki, artist, head of the Beaux-Arts de Paris studio
2.30pm: Meeting with Antoine de Baecque, film historian, ENS-PSL, followed by discussion
3.30pm: Hamish Fulton, artist, in conversation with Muriel Enjalran, director of FRAC Sud, followed by a discussion