Photos taken from the tour and writing practice.
Photo credits: Jesse Todd, Sergio Pina and Rox Chidrawi
Photos taken from the tour and writing practice.
Photo credits: Jesse Todd, Sergio Pina, Andrija Rubich and Rox Chidrawi
Photos taken from the tour and writing practice.
Photo credits: Jesse Todd, Sergio Pina and Rox Chidrawi
As tourism is such an important industry for Phuket, the study of critical tourism provided my project another research line that could open up more conversations around alternative possibilities for arts in Phuket, especially after the resurgence of tourism post-COVID-19 pandemic.
The act of touring as an artistic exercise and method became one way I could engage with the study of critical tourism and other art makers in the field. And I was being guided by other artists who blend touring experiences to play with my own blended tour. Through the PPS bootcamp program, I participated in a workshop with Kitt Johnson practicing a mini version of her Walk, Talk, Archive Dive process for Mellemrum. This practice rekindled my personal love of being a tour guide and how I could blend touring with creative actions in Phuket.
The Tour of All Tours by Bill Aitchison is described as an arts engagement that is practiced or informed by a critical tourist perspective. By researching into all the possible tours available in a city area (even online or underground) and blending them into an artistic and experiential tour that confronts attendees with unanticipated encounters, Aitchison allowed the potential for critical reflection in the audience.
Intuitively I was drawn to the action of hiking for a number of reasons. It is physically active, it can help expand awareness and mindfulness. It takes you somewhere through your own action. A number of of writers or creators (for example Haruki Murakami's What I talk about when I talk about running) cite an active physical movement practice as essential for the writing process. The act of hiking usually provides an intimate or in-between experience with nature. It can be social or solo. It can be another way to gather insight or information for the writing process that is a more topophilic connection with the space. In Phuket, it is a popular activity to do on the weekend or in the evenings for locals and tourists on the island and I would be able to find participants.
Hiking felt like a sustainable touristic action that could blend well with storytelling to investigate viewpoints as a public space.
References:
The Question of the Other: Cultural Critiques of Magical Realism, by Wendy B. Faris
Kitt Johnson - Mellemrum - Walk, Talk, Archive Dive
Tourists like Us: Critical Tourism and Contemporary Art Practices edited by Martini, Federica, and Vytautas Michelkevicius.
Bill Aitchison - Tour of All Tours
Haruki Murakami - What I talk about when I talk about running
Storytelling Postcards: An interactive writing tool designed for participants to use while exploring, documenting, and writing about the space using different techniques of magical realism. A postcard souvenir of the experience.
Story Share Recording from Khao Rang writing practice.
3 Participants shared stories (including myself)
1 participant only practiced hiking and individual writing practice. Did not wish to have story shared or included.
Story Share Recording from Kathu Waterfall writing practice.
2 Participants shared stories (including myself)
Story Share Recording from Black Rock writing practice.
4 Participants shared stories (including myself)
1 participant only practiced hiking and individual writing practice. Did not wish to have story shared or included.
Next steps conducted after the Experiment: Writing with literary techniques of Magical Realism at Big Buddha Viewpoint
-Necessity for more distance as researcher and importance of documenting while doing for reviewing and analyzing the effectiveness of this process. Documentation was focused around photos and recording of the story shares but recordings of the instructional moments and interactions that took place during the writing practice could really help inform future development of similar tours.
-The interactive writing tool of storytelling postcards was received well by all participants, who actively engaged in the front side and enjoyed sharing the creative practice together.
-Participants were able to work with literary technique suggestions to activate practice writing with magical realism. The story fragments that were written demonstrate attempts at incorporating the technique into the writing.
-Directions for taking observations were too vague and participants found it difficult to focus their writing attention on a specific aspect of the space. This resulted in some writing lacking a critical perspective or transformative nature to the infusion of magic into the writing.
Rewriting "Pieces of Home" into a version for travelers and sharing the choices we make while traveling - "Pieces of Travel"
I was left with the question of whether stories should be linked to past traveler choices and memories OR whether the stories are observational narratives of what is happening in the space. Or if they should both be blended together and how?
I started with accessing memories and attempted to rewrite an embodied group storytelling exercise I had written for the co-creation project with MOM into one for travelers on a journey together. "Pieces of Home" <---> "Pieces of Travel" focusing on similarly styled embodied experiences to access and share memories of choices made to travel or while travelling. Sharing these choices together to hopefully allow for an engaged discussion and critical reflection.
These exercise would hopefully encourage mindfullness and focus participants attention more specifically on an effectively inspired writing practice more intimately in connection with the space.
Four redesigned tours that focused on the Big Buddha viewpoint were scheduled during March 11 and 18, to test out new strategies, postcards and further expand the knowledge, stories and interactions I had been cultivating with that particular public space.
The tours were divided into morning and evening options and were posted on facebook and shared with different friends and groups in Phuket. A few people and friends reached out, wanting to participate, but on the days of the tour people cancelled or did not show up.
I conducted a hike and writing practice on my own March 11th to try out the new postcard design.
Re-touring the engagement through reflective questions
-What research question am I attempting to answer through this engagement?
-How do these tours stay critical of tourist practices?
-How can the setting of the tours be critical of tourist practices?
-How does magical realism relate to touring?
-How can I facilitate participants in mindfulness/awareness/focus exercises to initiate an open-minded writing process?
-Am I working with too many things? What can I simplify in the exercise to keep it focused?
After the first experiments with touring local viewpoints and playing with writing stories of magical realism, I sought and received feedback about their form and purpose. After some critiques, I reflected on what elements of the tour were missing or underdeveloped. Suggestions were given as to what was missing or needed to bridge certain gaps in my research and intentions. The three main suggestions were placing a hiking tour into unexpected tourist places/paths, methods to generate mindfulness for participants and blending more collective and performative storytelling methods. In a sense I went about and devised a new tour that implemented each suggestion, in a way, or how, after more testing, this form could be further developed to blend in other practices.
Through my lens as a writing educator, I wanted to test and develop the strategies for engagement I had devised during the program, and understand their reception and effectiveness. I decided to develop the postcards to include a practice that engaged writing speculation with the Spectral Glossary of Critical Tourism. This led the the thematic framing of observations through various spectra, and eventually the thematic framing of future experiments and this project.
The suggestion to stage the tour in unexpected tourist places really resonated with how I imagine these types of practices intervening in public spaces - ideally - but because of certain reservations to perform this speculative practice in highly visible and regulated public spaces, the locations of trails and viewpoints felt like a safe choice.
The open environment of trails and viewpoints felt like a safe environment for people to practice and share more openly than in a busier urban tourist area in Phuket. Participants might be hesitant or unsure how to practice or myself worrying about any legal or ethical implications. The Big Buddha temple viewpoint and road leading up could provide another in-between experience that engaged participants with a tour through the small community leading up to the mountain and a highly visited tourist location at the top.
In order to encourage more connective practice through storytelling during the actual hike and to generate mindfulness before writing practice, I looked back to exercises I had used or devised during the project. "Pieces of Home" was a series of embodied storytelling exercises I devised that I wanted to further test and refine. It became a model for imitation writing and transforming it to a version related to our choices of travel. Below you can encounter "Pieces of Travel".
After waiting and writing there for 45 minutes, I was approached by staff working at the temple viewpoint to stop advertising a tour and put away my signs. I was informed that guiding tours, especially in a place like Big Buddha, was reserved legally for only Thai citizens (Tourism and Tourist Guide Business Act (2008)).
To continue to work respectfully, but still engage with this particular public space, I went through a process of de-touring my project and searching for other engagements I would be excited developing from the work that was already started.
After the few attempts at organizing the tour through the online event, but I decided to post myself there as a pop up style writing tour that people could join for free.
I found a nice table in the shade just before the main stairway that was out of the way of foot traffic but noticeable. I had two white board signs to advertise the tour and some postcard examples to display. I thought it important to write and demonstrate my practice while I waited for anyone curious to try the tour. I did not want to disrupt tourists journey in and out of the temple viewpoint so I considered it best to advertise with a sign and wait.
