Research

Walking as a question (2021)

Research Paper:
Emerging Questions and Considerations on Leave No Trace and Walking Practices

Written for the WAC Walking as a Question Conference 2021.

Abstract: Leave No Trace is an outdoor ethics education programme that has been designed as a guiding mindset for how one interacts with and influences the natural environments. As the act of walking experiences an upsurge in participants, our collective mark on the environment and its natural processes increase. As artists, one can argue that there is a responsibility in how one’s engagements shape the culture around an activity, and as walking spreads into more fields of life and research, this consideration becomes all the more important. 

This paper aims to ask some emerging questions into how walking practices could incorporate or consider Leave No Trace within the practice. To investigate this topic I will be drawing on my artistic research into walking as practice, and my experience of both becoming and working as a Leave No Trace Ireland trainer.

Link to both written and audio versions of the paper.

Contemporary Photography in a Traditional Landscape (2019)

Research Paper:
Creating Contemporary Photography in a Traditional Landscape: walking through representations in the Irish landscape

Written for the WAC Walking Art Practices Conference in Prespa, Greece, 2019.

Abstract: The island of Ireland is a place whose representations have run far wilder than the island itself. The country was under colonial rule when photography was invented, and in this paper, I am going to discuss how the defining representations of the Irish landscape were formed during this period from a romantic, picturesque, tourist gaze. Since then, Ireland has become famous for the greenness of its hills and the wildness of its countryside. I am going to examine how this imagined place has impacted how the landscape is seen, experienced, and continually represented.

Link to written paper.

The unwritten rules of wild camping (2018)

Personal Research:
The Unwritten Rules of Wild Camping

Published 2nd July 2018 on the Tough Soles Blog.

Extract: I’ve been thinking about the topic of wild camping, and wild spaces in Ireland for a while, trying to decide what the best way to approach a discussion about it is, and share our experiences.

People have asked us about our camping - do you camp, where do you camp, why don’t you show your campsites in videos more, etc. Wild camping is one of my favourite things about this trip, and it’s also one of the things that causes me the most anxiety. In Ireland there are no snakes, no bears - in fact pretty much no wild animals or plants that are going to harm you. The thing that scares me the most when camping are other people. No matter how many jokes Irish people make about “living in the middle of nowhere”, the Irish countryside isn’t all that remote most of the time. Which makes it tricky for me to feel comfortable throwing up the tent on a pretty lake shore and sitting in the evening sun… What I'm hoping to create is a helpful guide to other adventurers and ramblers, who have been wandering in the same grey areas as me around hiking and wild camping.

Link to blog post.