Path(s), Kinder Scout, are two pieces of work developed as part of the This Land is Our Land research project, curated by Stephen Walter and Dr Simon Woolham. The research project, built around the mass trespass on Kinder Scout in the Peak District in 1932, was connected to potential current alterations to 'free' movement between spaces in light of Brexit.

Exhibition Text:

As a starting point, artists Stephen Walter and Simon Woolham organised a walk, re-tracing a famous mass trespass to the summit of Kinder Scout in the Peak District. The walk, on 24 April 1932, was a notable act of wilful trespass by ramblers. It was undertaken to highlight the fact that walkers in England and Wales were denied access to areas of open country.

The artists have invited a number of contemporary artists, with a diversity of practices, to re-explore the meaning of place and myth in the act of pilgrimage whilst mirroring the socio-politic absurdity of today. A number of the artists will re-trace the history of the Kinder Scout walk but this time in the context of an anti-Brexit walk. The walk will be on 29 March 2019, the date the UK is scheduled to leave the EU, and will also act as an open invitation for those wanting to join in on the walk/demonstration.

In the aftermath of the event, the artists will make work in response and reference to this particular walk, or another project - inviting an overtly political stance, questioning both the effects of leaving the EU and what the term THIS LAND IS OUR LAND signifies today. The exhibition will happen at PAPER in Manchester alongside the alternative exhibition INTER-SECTION at Market Gallery in Huddersfield, a conversation between two sites. At Market Gallery there will be a presentation of artworks curated around artist-led initiatives and at PAPER the exhibition will present notes, drawings, and paper ephemera.

The works and ephemera in the exhibition combine photography and performance, drawing and sculpture, digital and analogue processes. The works are united, creating a meeting point, a conversation around the themes and premise of THIS LAND IS OUR LAND.

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My own practice-based research work is closely connected to the ways in which spaces and places are negotiated. Recent works have been focused upon paths (Twice as Nice, 2018, PS Mirabel) and on fences as barriers and blockages in space (Grille, Patriothall, 2018). It is because of this ongoing research that I was invited by Dr Simon Woolham (Exhibition Programmer at Paper Gallery) to develop new work for this project.

In This Land is Our Land, I showed 2 new works, each titled Path(s), Kinder Scout. Having lived near to the Peak District in the past, I was familiar with the area and created works referencing the appearance of the paths in the area, derived from personal photographs of walks which I'd regularly undertaken. The openness of the area is at the heart of these works which do not feature fences or walls, or means by which movement would be restricted. What the works do reference is the activity of repeating similar lines of movement, and in this way they clearly are connected to previous endeavours which foreground repetitive mark-making activities as a means by which to bring attention to an aspect of a spatialisation process.

The same paths were walked again and again, not though using footsteps on the 'free' space of Kinder Scout, but through the application of paint on a prepared surface. Each individual postcard sized work was employed as the source material for the next in an iterative, repetitive process. 2 sets of six paintings were made, with each collection being exhibited as a single work under the title Path(s), Kinder Scout.

Here, painting was employed as personal methodological tool, through which new / improved knowledge was gained about a specific geographical location. The activity of painting allowed for the paths to be better understood through the re-presentation process itself. The development of these works was therefore a process by which an action of continually tracing a line of movement, again and again, and having the freedom to do this, was shown to emerge as an important aspect of engaging with space and place in this contemporary era.

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PAPER is an artist-led gallery based in Manchester and represents a range of emerging and mid-career artists whose practice is based around the medium of paper. This ranges from drawing, painting, and printmaking to artist's books, video, and performance. The gallery opened in August 2012 and has a regular programme of exhibitions, presenting the work of gallery artists as well as providing a platform for outside curatorial projects.

In 2013 PAPER instigated an Artist-in-Residence programme, Exploring PAPER, and in 2014 a mentoring scheme for artists based in the North-West of England, funded by Arts Council England.

Directed by David Hancock, working alongside Sara Jaspan, Lubna Ali, Mike Burrows, Sarah Boulter, Andrea Cotton, and Simon Woolham; PAPER has participated in five editions of The Manchester Contemporary (UK), as well as Art Rotterdam 2016, Art Projects at London Art Fair, Art on Paper at BOZAR (Brussels), Art Copenhagen, Sluice Art Fair (London), Supermarket (Stockholm), Project Space Collective at the Affordable Art Fair 2014 (Battersea), Exchange Rates (New York).

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