The Press and Journal (Inverness, Highlands, and Islands)
Artist’s call to join in and ‘walk the world’
Huntly arts organisation Deveron Projects has called on people to come together to “walk the world”.
The 2020 Slow Marathon had to be called off due to coronavirus, so people have been encouraged to log all the miles they walk in their daily exercise with the aim of reaching a 26,000-mile target – equivalent to walking round the world.
The Slow Marathon was initially devised by Ethiopian artist Mihret Kebede in 2012.
Deveron Projects director Claudia Zeiske said: “From the great outdoors to our gardens and even our living rooms, wherever and whenever people are able to walk we are inviting them to log their miles so that cumulatively and symbolically we can walk round the world together.
“Our current climate is adopting an increasing fear of the outsider and some of our politicians’ rhetoric about Covid-19 being a ‘foreign virus’ in particular is playing into existing xenophobia.
“The virus however, doesn’t acknowledge borders – the pandemic is affecting us all.
“Every step we take will help us reach the target of 26,000 miles and demonstrate tangibly that we are all in it together.”
This year’s Slow Marathon is part of art project, Under One Sky, being led by Glasgowbased Iranian artist and photographer Iman Tajik.
He is asking people to take photographs of the sky as they walk, which will then be incorporated into a piece that reflects how the whole world is “joined together under one sky”.
To register and log your miles walked, visit www. deveron-projects.com