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"Once grounded in individual gestures, modernist spatial explorations, and aesthetic abstraction, walking as a creative practice has expanded into a socially and ecologically interconnected discipline. No longer merely about the artist’s personal journey or conceptual spatial intervention, walking arts now embrace relationality, political awareness, technological hybridity, and often cross disciplinary boundaries." Geert Vermeire - WALC
WAP / WALKING AS PRACTICE explores and shares strategies of proximity through artistic expression within the field of walking practices. The program configures a transformative, dynamic space for art that engages with life and nature. It embraces critical and poetic explorations influenced by the immediate surroundings—where the forest meets the sea.
WAP is a semi-directed residency program located on Björkö in the Northern Stockholm Archipelago, Sweden. Each artist is provided with their own studio. Selection of artists is always a blend of avid practitioners and artists new to walking as artform.
Themes per year:
WAP25: Walking As Passion - Embodied Thinking
WAP24: Spaces of Anticipation
WAP23: Attentative Walking
The WAP25 program was hosted by BKN, an art node in a rural setting where the forest meets the sea. BKN receives support from Region Stockholm and Norrtälje Municipality, as well as a grant from Roslagens Sparbank for audio equipment and an art trail. Public walks were organized in collaboration with ABF Norrtäje (Workers' Educational Association).
In 2025, we became an official node within the larger network WALC / Walking Together, which will coordinate its nodes from autumn 2025 through 2027 on an EU grant.
WAP is a process-based art program in which we delve into each other’s knowledge and the encounters we share on Birch Island / Björkö. Together, we explore proximity through artistic expressions within the field of walking practices. Each year has its own theme and focus.
Interventions unfold across different registers of time and site, with an emphasis on how walking is interwoven into our practices. Fieldwork and seminars are carried out collectively to identify and entangle structures, narratives, and forces. We value a safe, open, and friendly attitude as an integral part of the art scene we create and share.
BKN fosters a peer-based environment—thinking together, learning together—serving as a resource and semi-public forum for exploration and experimentation. Together, we create a transformative, dynamic space for art that engages with life and nature through critical and poetic explorations, shaped by the immediate surroundings: the forest, lakes, sea, and the people living in the rural area.
Interventions weave across different registers of time and site. The focus is on how walking is interlocked in our practices. Fieldworks and seminars are jointly done to locate and entangle structures, narratives and forces. We believe in a safe and friendly attitude as part of the art scene we share.
WAPC – Walking As Practice Coalition was conceived when we applied as a research group to Supermarket Art Fairin Stockholm, Sweden. The members of WAPC vary from year to year.
Keywords:
walking practices, asymmetry, entanglement, non-violence, not-knowing, desire, nature relations, responsibility, deep listening, close seeing, territory, contested sites
