Throughout my walking practice I have a desire to get lost. Lost in the landscape. Initially I thought this would be easy, take a turning you don’t know, walk away form the path and cross country and soon enough you will be unsure of where you are going. It doesn’t happen quite that easily unfortunately.

I can only really remember one time I was truly lost. I had downloaded a map for a loped walk around Lyndhurst, the map looked slightly precarious but I thought I would be absolutely fine, I mean there was a pub on route so it would be fun! I managed to reach the The Oak Inn with no problem what so ever and enjoyed a tasty lunch. However though I thought I was heading in the right direction after we left the pub, we were definitely not following the map anymore. I still don’t know where we went so wrong, but we really thought we were heading in the right direction and must have wandered miles off track. Due to not having phone signal, and literally being in the middle of nowhere, we wondered for 4 hours until we reached the road and I knew which direction of traffic to follow. We ended up coming out into a riding school, we looked very out of place. I walked all the way through smiling at all the rich children on their pony’s until we reached the road. We stayed on the forest edge off the fast road but made sure to  follow it all the way back. I rather enjoyed my adventure the helplessness that I had, although I can say that was not the case for one of the party members who was in a very sour mood for taking him in such an expedition. 

So now in my practice I am exploring the struggle to get lost because I have learnt that it can not just happen when you want it to. Although I find it is much easier to get lost in yourself, lost in your thoughts and imagination as you wander. This two ideas play against each other being physically and mentally lost. Can they both happen at the same time or does one lead to the other? And how to get the stage of being lost, its not like you can right a map.

Its an irony not being able to get lost and that what my artwork is about. I walk away from people, to escape people, a bit like a narcissists. yet everywhere I go I am constantly reminded of human activity. A cigarette butt, a sweet wrapper, a poo bag, or even mad made structures like a path or a bench, a field of crops even if the life isn’t there, there are constant signs and associations to remind me. Never really can someone be truly lost, only very rarely. So instead of being lost in the landscape, I can lose myself in the land, let my thoughts wonder, my body drift. The rhythm of walking, the repetitive notion of putting one foot in front of the other, begins to become unconscious. I walk without having to to think of where my feet are going, of how my body moves, it just happens. So while I pace and roam without knowing how my feet position themselves, my thoughts can take over and run wild. This is often the closest I can become to being lost.