Alison Lloyd, Ramsey Moor, Derbyshire, 11 January 2020
In contrast to the straight line walking of Simon Faithfull’s ‘0°00 Navigation’, Alison Lloyd practiced a method of consciously walking the contours of a landscape. In her own words: “the term ‘contouring’ has become a verb that denotes my primary method of practising walking art. Contouring reflects how I walk by following the contours, and it has also become my term for how I walk when conscious of being a woman alone in some remote places, using walking as an artistic method and process. The Ordnance Survey maps define and describe contouring as a method of planning a route in mountainous areas or over rough terrain, when ‘the straightest line between starting point and destination may not be the easiest, quickest or safest’.””As I moved from experienced recreational walker (leisure walker) to walking as an artist I became interested in exploring large, identifiable areas, not always wanting to climb up to the tops of the hills and mountains. At this point I appropriated the term contouring to describe my changing attitude to walking.”
For Lloyd, the art of walking was a process of meticulous planning, research and preparation.She practiced and surveyed her walks before completing the final art walk. She photographed each aspect- the map reading, planning, sleeping, herself observing the route. She practiced visualisation. She kept a notebook of her thought processes. While out walking, Lloyd would set the camera low to the ground and photograph herself, showing the relationship between herself and the landscape.
Sources-
https://www.weareprimary.org/research/alison-lloyd-contouring-women-walking-and-art