Stories told by walking: sculpture trails and the Bayeux Tapestry
Likely interpreted from first hand accounts, and crafted at the time of the Northern Conquest that it depicts, the Bayeux Tapestry stands today as a relic to the art of story telling. The sense of reportage and urgency demonstrate that this was not made in order to seek mastery of artistic skill ‘with the assurance of Assyrian or Roman chroniclers’, but to report, in a fairly direct way, a contemporary story of epic proportions and with an urgency of delivery that makes it the medieval equivalent to the newspaper of today.
A fundamental point to note about the Bayeux Tapestry is that to follow its story, we must walk along it. At 70 meters long, we cannot step back from it as we would do for murals such as Picasso’s Guernica, or frescos of the Italian renaissance, we are compelled to walk along it, in order to follow the linear narrative. In this way, the user experience is more akin to a sculpture trail than it is to say, ancient Chinese scrolls, in that we have to physically walk along it to see it all. The panels, or scenes, become like individual sculptures within the trail — viewable on their own, but with added significance and meaning as a collective whole.
At 33 miles long, the Irwell Sculpture trail is the largest sculpture route in the UK and boasts works from internationally renowned artists such as Lawrence Weiner and Ulrich Rückriem.
Above an abandoned train line on the Outwood section of the trail, sits this untitled work by Ulrich Rückriem. The work comprises of ten large stones, that are situated in separate sites, designed to reference what Rückriem calls the ‘truthful reality’ of this former colliery site. Like the Bayeux Tapestry, the work cannot be viewed all at once, in it’s entirety, we must walk along to experience it — which gives it a sort of duration, less linear than Bayeux, and with a more ambiguous route that encourages discovery and participation.
Marcel Duchamp once wrote:
“All in all, the creative act is not performed by the artist alone; the spectator brings the work in contact with the external world by deciphering and interpreting its inner qualifications and thus adds his contribution to the creative act,”
If works of art rely on our engagement with them in order for them to be activated, then works that rely upon us to walk along them, to actually physically use our body to view them, arguably have a greater substance and engagement to their story telling — a participatory route for discovery. Works that encourage walking for their experience exist in a static state, waiting for activation and meaning through movement by people.
One could say that in general sculpture trails are more like walking through art galleries than walking along the Bayeux Tapestry, unless of course, when experiencing works such as this by Ulrich Rückriem, where the work is not complete without walking along and through it.
How could this notion improve city planning decisions for the future? If the benefits of both walking and culture are clear — could there be a way for urban planners to incorporate more ‘cultural walking’ into masterplans, and what impact could this have on social value for the development of urban woodland?
References
Bayeux Museum https://www.bayeuxmuseum.com/en/the-bayeux-tapestry/
E.H. Gombrich, The Story of Art, London, 1972, p.122–124
Irwell Sculpture Trail Visitor Guide http://www.irwellsculpturetrail.co.uk/images/pdf/visitorguide.pdf
Marcel Duchamp, ‘The Creative Act’, in Salt Seller: The Writings of Marcel Duchamp (Marchand du Sel), ed. Michel Sanouillet and Elmer Peterson, Oxford University Press, 1973, p.140
Nick Barley (ed.) Artranspennine98: An international contemporary visual art exhibition recorded, London, 1999, p.179
Sacha Waldron, Bury Bury Good for You: Lawrence Weiner and the launch of Bury Sculpture Centre, The Skinny, 3rd June 2014. https://www.theskinny.co.uk/art/interviews/bury-bury-good-for-you-lawrence-weiner-and-the-launch-of-bury-sculpture-centre
