There is rarely silence while walking - hiking boots crunch through layers of leaves; breaths heave on the uphill stretches; backpacks gently, but relentlessly, creak as the weight shifts from shoulder to hip. Wind blows branches, rain pelts hoods. However, within this amiable cacophony, the most consistent noise machine would have to be one's mind.
It can go unnoticed, the noise a mind can make. While living in a loud, constantly changing environment like a city, the mental chatter you have with yourself nestles into the background sounds of everyday life. It disguises itself as to-do lists, and reminders for events you’ve forgotten to write down. But while your legs are burning, feet gently sliding in the boggy soil (somehow found on every mountain on this island) your mind will keep talking to you. It builds elaborate plans for when the walking ends, or maybe dissects the language used on a single sign many miles back.
And then I look up, panting and with shaking knees. The photo forms in front of me, and my hands automatically unclip the camera from where it’s latched as I walk. Camera is raised to eye, and for that moment there is silence.
The Mourne Mountains, Co. Down
Currently, I am stationary, living in a city, examining what I have made while walking. All the silent moments now have the potential to create a new narrative, reflecting on the research I find, and the new voices that are sharing the space of my mind.
- Reflections on walking, 2018
About
Ellie Berry is a visual artist and writer living in Ireland. Her work focuses on outdoor experiences, often exploring the landscape and the connections found there. This is primarily through walking: sometimes hiking through remote areas for days or weeks at a time, sometimes it is the small steps through familiar places, but seen anew.
She has completed a Practice-led Masters by Research at IADT (2021, 4.0 GPA), in which she reflected on the power of representation of place, and our responsibility of that representation. She graduated from her BA in Photography with a 1st class honours degree in 2016. Her work is held in the PhotoIreland collection and the IADT collection.
From August 2019 - December 2021 she was a member of Ormond Art Studios in Dublin. Having now moved to rural Roscommon, she has acres of wet fields to call her creative space.
Between 2017 - 2019 she and Carl Lange walked every National Waymarked Trail in Ireland, becoming the first people to do so. They walked over 4,000km and documented the project through Tough Soles.
Recent exhibitions include WALK! in the Schrin Kunsthalle, Frankfurt Feb - May 2022; the Creatives Against COVID19 in the Guinness Storehouse, 2020; 100 Views of Contemporary Ireland, The Library Project Temple Bar, 2020; In the Making, Ormond Art Studios Ten Year Show at the Dublin Civic Trust Building, 2019.
She has published academic papers as part of the Made of Walking International Encounters/Conference, researching; photographic representations of the Irish landscape and how that shapes our interactions with it (2019); and a paper that asked questions into how walking art practices could incorporate or consider Leave No Trace within the practice (2021).
Contact
This page was last updated Feb 2022