A Collection of Walks (or How to Walk to Earth)
The Golden Record on the 1977 Voyager Spacecraft contains a simple graphic and code that will allow a distant alien race to locate Earth. I used the graphic and the space race-inspired ethos of the second World’s Fair in Flushing Meadows Corona Park to design a series of 14 walks from various points throughout New York City to the Unisphere in front of the Queens Museum. The routes were as far away as Greenwood Cemetery and as close as the 111th Street 7 Train platform. The project was developed as part of a residency at the Queens Museum in conjunction with ArtBuilt mobile studios. Over the course of a month I walked each of the routes and also devoted time to studying the history of area landscapes. While walking I generated a collection of found objects, took hundreds of photographs, and kept a travel log. At the end of a month I turned the studio into a walk-in cabinet of curiosities that was open to the public. Over the following months I contextualized the experiences, objects and photographs into a finished installation, a walker’s guide and artist book.
