I find borders and boundaries interesting, and they certainly seem to attract a lot of drama and tension. I like drama and tension, and being a border girl myself I thought it was fertile ground for exploration. As Tamzin Powell said on our walk in the Wye valley...
“Where there’s a border it’s like a crossroads - it’s a sacred place, a place where you can do magic, where your charms and spells can work, and it’s also a place of death.”
I’ve had the desire to walk the Welsh/English border for a while but it took being locked down in my small terrace in Cardiff with a new baby that really made me yearn for wild walks with panoramas and broad horizons. It has also made us at Gagglebabble want to connect more with people and place and experiment with new platforms. So in July, with the help of Pentabus and funding from Arts Council of Wales stabilisation grant, we did a call out to artists and locals living on the border to join me on a walk of their choosing, and from August to October we did nine walks accompanied by filmmaker Siôn Marshall Waters. While we walked we talked, remembered, explored identity, folklore, stories, got lost and then found the path again. We immersed ourselves in the dramatic landscape and felt inspired. For the artists, I asked for creative responses to their walk and the results are all beautifully unique and personal. As we lock back down during this strange winter, we hope you enjoy these snapshots of the borders, and maybe when you re-emerge from hibernation you will be inspired to walk in our footsteps.
Lucy Rivers
