Art of Walking: Walking as Art

March 27 – May 2, 2026

Artist Talk + Reception: Friday March 27 at 5pm
Carolina Franzen + Helena Wadsley

There is more underfoot than meets the sole. Walking, the most sustainable means of transport, is a vital way of acknowledging that the planet is changing, the icebergs are melting. When we walk, our experienced habitat is the tip of the endangered iceberg.

Helena Wadsley and Carolina Franzen, both Sunshine Coast residents, have adopted a diverse tradition of Walking Art into their practices. Engaged with the challenges posed by land use, and in order to find alternative relations to the land, their inspiration for drawings, sculptures, and video comes through periods of intense physical contact to the environment; be it that objects found in the landscape may be contextually sculpted so that their meaning and history remains connected with the land, be it that a slow pace allows them to witness and to create through acts of acknowledgment and connectivity. Both artists’ drawings tread the lines of the land between natural and human-made, and yet, their sculptures, found objects, and video works have a second threshold in common: to record the walking experience while enabling the visitor to traverse with them.

The combination of works use walking as an art medium and result from walking in our current ecological context. Research, intuition, (eco-) feminism, and humour are the means to inspire the visitor to step into affirmative acknowledgements of land use and re-engage with post-colonial reconciliation and reciprocity.

Funded by the Canada Council of the Arts for her walking-based video installation Walk Lightly Move Deeply, Helena Wadsley was originally trained as a painter (U Saskatchewan, Emily Carr). Carolina Franzen, who initially focused on research and writing about walking (MA thesis on the topic Walking, Space, Aesthetics) developed her own art practices on the Sunshine Coast for which walking remains the core conceptual element. Walking engendered both artists’ contemporary collaboration.always arrive with a bold entrance. Sometimes, it builds quietly, step by step, as we show up for ourselves day after day. It grows when we choose to try, even when we’re unsure of the outcome. Every time you take action despite self-doubt, you reinforce the belief that you’re capable. Confidence isn’t about having all the answers — it’s about trusting that you can figure it out along the way.

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