The journey began in Riga

Over the course of September-November, we are presenting our latest project: '2360 Miles Travelled Hand to Heart', as part of DISTANCE, a mobile festival featured in three locations this year: Riga, London and Newcastle.

Our ambition is to physicalize the distance between these three locations: 3789km. So in Riga, accompanied by audio of Laura's steps in Toronto, I measured out a scaled-down version of this distance in rope. Each metre (roughly the distance of our hand to our hearts) represented 10km of the global journey from Riga to London and London to Newcastle and Newcastle back to Riga. In Toronto, Laura walked a scaled version of this journey, counting 2 of her steps for every km.


Then began the walking, our attempt to erode this distance by taking walks in each of the locations with audiences, following directions that represent the global journey over Europe and the UK.

We crossed borders, changed time zones...

followed water...

and arriving again at our Riga, our journey's end, we measured how far we had travelled. The distance each person travelled was then cut from the measured rope.

Each step travelled helped erode the distance.


11 participants and several km travelled

and many more to go! London here we come...

Riga see you soon

I am packing my bags for Riga where our journey officially begins. I wanted to say thank you to all the brilliant people who have generously donated rope for this new artwork.
Thank you to Ivan in Yorkshire for the retired theatre rope. Thank you to Holly from number 83, and Holly's dad who raided his shed. Thank you to Celia and the retired garden swing. Thank you for the donations from Canada and the beautiful coil of practice Knots left on Laura's door step. Finally a huge thank you to Gandrs in Riga who have donated a stunning quantity of climbing rope to help us reach our target amount.
Each of these ropes have individually had many journeys of their own, but together they will now form a new journey. - one taken from Hand to Heart - a journey from Riga to London and London to Newcastle and back again to Riga.

Riga see you soon
sorrel