Sophie Durand

 only mountains never meet

Between the 7th and 14th of October alongside Ariadna Garriga Ballarin (ESP), Shannon Calcott (AU/DE), Patricia Carolina (MX/IS), Maríanna Eva Dúfa Sævarsdóttir (IS) and Þorúnn Dís Halldorsdóttir (IS), I undertook a journey through the Tatra Mountains. During this journey we used multiple forms of practice-led research, to investigate how the experience of moving through landscape and engagement in site can be documented and translated through visual language. Artists operated within a post-studio and roving art practice in which production of work coexisted with the physical movement through landscape, as well as being one and the same. There are synergies between doing travel and doing art and this project actively explored and manifest this notion. This journey and the acknowledgement of it acts as a bridge between experience of Poland and the Icelandic cultural landscape, audiences are incidental; and include the people of the Tatra Mountains, other travelers and the collaborating participants. There was no set itinerary for this journey it’s trajectory was generated collaboratively both between participants and in response to the journey taken and the field environment; the weather, urgency for investigation, the material generated and suggestions from locals. Collaboration within the context of this project existed in the form of reciprocal support, shared experience and the dialogue between those individuals and the emerging outcomes.