Ben Tajima Simpson

Walk

Walking is an action which puts us back in the position of the earliest humans who made the first great journeys across this earth of foot.  One needs only to imagine the population of the Americas by hunter gatherer tribes crossing the Bearing Land Bridge in the freezing Arctic North and moving down to discover a new world, long before Columbus with his ships.  I feel that with our mechanical methods of travel we have lost a sense of the distance and space that separates one place from another.  We constantly move through space without paying attention to the space we are moving through and the nature that surrounds us.  Speeding through the landscape in our metal cocoons with our stereos on we are detached from the noises, textures and elements of the world outside. We might think nothing of the plane journey to Spain, but to make that journey on foot would mean spending time with the natural elements, the changing landscape and encountering many different people and places.

With this in mind I decided to walk the border between Wales and England, South to North, Chepstow to Chester, a journey of about 200 miles.  Though the 18 days I spent walking the border between Wales and England is a relatively small journey it proved to be a significantly life changing experience.  I felt that somehow I was becoming human again.  Spending so much time under the sky, even at night with only a thin tent sheet to cover me, my body was exposed to the natural environment.  I moved through the countryside, along foot paths and ancient trails.  I also followed rivers and roads and passed through towns.  I felt the wet and the cold, walked through rain and snow, saw the sunset and the moon rise.  I foraged for wild food and found pig nuts, birch sap and wild garlic in the woodland.  At the foot of the Black mountains I rode a wild pony and dunked my head in the cool, clear water of a stream.