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LAND is the name of a new project that I undertook throughout the whole of 2023. Building on my previous KYST (2018) and ERTHOLMENE (2021) projects, LAND took the form of an exploratory journey through space and time.

Just like the KYST project, LAND took place on the Danish Island of Bornholm and consisted of a series of 52 consecutive walking tours, one for each week of the year. Each walk took place on Friday and begun at dawn and ended at dusk, whatever the weather and however long the day was. I started at the point where I finished the previous week’s walk – painting, drawing, and recording what I experienced as I went.

Whereas I followed Bornholm’s coastline for the KYST project, I now ventured inland and walked over fields, along paths, and through forests. My route around the island was roughly clockwise, sometimes meandering into the centre of Bornholm, sometimes coming closer to the coast.

LAND began on Friday the 6^th of January 2023 on the beach at Saltuna, where the Kelse Stream empties into the Baltic Sea. If Bornholm is a gigantic clock face or sundial, then this point is 180 degrees opposite from where I started KYST in Rønne. The Kelse Stream valley is a geological fault line that continues into the centre of the island, and thus represents the perfect path into the heart of Bornholm.

During each journey I moved slowly and observed and recorded my experiences. Each walk was a story of a day, of the changing light and weather and the rising and setting of the sun. The walks together told the story of the year, and how I experienced its passing.

I am fascinated by the process of observation and the way in which the physical act of looking – really looking – creates a deep physiological connection between ourselves and our environment. I am equally fascinated by how we interpret and respond creatively to this process, and the relationship between the objective physical act of observation and the subjective act of interpretation.

The concluding walk in the last week of the year (Friday, December the 29^th) took me right back to the beach at Kelse Stream, where I had begun a year earlier. I had explored a cultivated landscape of fields, hedgerows, and woods, borne witness to the arrival and departure of migratory birds, the flowering and wilting of vegetation, and moved through strata of geological time.

The ‘interactive’ elements of the project were updated weekly. My meandering path drawing a line around the island was recorded by my phone’s GPS and uploaded to this map

On my Instagram and my Facebook I uploaded a few images live on the day. During the week I wrote a short blog on this website summarizing the journey and the work I produced on the day. This interactive and social aspect of the project proved to be a very significant element of KYST and I look forward to sharing details of the journey as I go.

The book and the exhibition (Gudhjem museum) will be launched on Saturday the 1st of june, 2024