Canvas Walk is a way to create art by the mundane act of walking. For this score, you ask your friend to draw the silhouette of their favourite object on translucent paper. You will then overlay this with a picture of the map of the city you are in. Then, mark out the streets you will walk to create this silhouette. Go outside with your marked map and walk the streets, recording your walk on Strava. You will also look for the object or related things (for example, if the object is an apple, you will look for apples or a street named ‘Apple St.’, and take pictures of these objects. The objective of this piece was not only to create art but also to be present and experience your surroundings.
I think I was inspired partially by Yoko Ono’s ‘Smoke Piece‘ from Grapefruit and Allan Kaprow’s concept of ‘happenings’. Smoke piece asks you to observe the movement of the smoke from a canvas; this gave me the idea to use movement and canvas to create art. Moreover, Kaprow’s essence of a Happening, using mundane actions to create art, also influenced this score. I also believe I subconsciously chose to work with a maps since I am learning to make them in 2 other classes.
I playtested my score on a smaller ‘canvas’ first. Northeastern campus. I quickly realised that the area was too small to draw something. My first draft required the ‘thing’ drawn by my friend to be an animal; however, that turned out to be too complicated to be drawn by walking. A few things that worked well were the physical map, that way I wasn’t constantly looking at my phone, and spotting drawing related objects, which also helped me be more present.
For the final score, I expanded my canvas from Northeastern to Back Bay and repeated the score.
Pizza shop on my walk
Pizza silhouette recorded on Strava
My friends drawing