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WALKS   WORDS   UPCOMING
Score #5 by Alisa Oleva



[score base: a paper with crayon scribbles in the colours of purple, red, yellow and blue; photo and score: Alisa Oleva (2021); score text: Walking, he argues, requires one to learn a spatial language and act out that language through movement; it facilitates an exchange between/a collection waste, garbage/a laboratory for exchange in/the landscape, and the other bodies it encounters there/rejecting the restrictive nature/especially for society’s most marginalised./relationship to the instructions will emerge during the experience.]

Alisa and Blake, 2 July, London and New York City; Melanie, 3 July, Kendal; Liberty, 4 July, London.
Alisa walked first, starting us off in central London. Fag ends and covid detritus (‘a new sort of rubbish). She walked in the evening and considered the ‘rubbish cycle’, deposited at night and collected so early in the morning. Though not all collected… ‘it survives longest in corners’. Walking through Brick Lane as if she is lost, Alisa noticed the Friday night specific rubbish. It somehow related to the architecture of the city like VALIE EXPORT’s Body Configurations (1972-1976). Driven by rubbish, ‘the relationship to the instruction is forming’. Though ‘it is “bad” to litter’, she loves the traces and cigarette ends become a path she follows into the night. Her search for rubbish traces making her stand out amongst the East London revelers.

A cigarette end in the space between two slabs of pavement. A cigarette end in the tactile paving, standard pavement to its left. two cigarette ends in between the pavement and a different kind of stone pavement. A cigarette end sitting on the pavement. three cigarette ends sitting on the double yellow line of the street next to the curb. a cigarette end above double yellow lines on asphalt street viewed from above. A cigarette end in the crack between two paving slabs. 3 cigarette ends, one in the street, one on the curb, and one on the pavement.

Blake followed, starting in an outer borough of New York City. The rain poured down and rivers of trash filled the gutters. It was not the polite English rain to which he had become accustomed during his time in London. The storm is aggressive, like the city he is reacquainting himself with. It is NYC trash, not London rubbish (his pants are soaked, not his trousers). Scaffolding provides a rare moment of refuge. The score brought his attention to ‘society’s most marginalised’: the homeless (not the rough sleepers) who huddle in the dry wherever they can. Manhattan loomed from his vantage point in Queens. A reminder of the ‘chip on Donald Trump’s shoulder’. The need to emblazon the landscape with your name. Trash perhaps a more fitting T word.

a heap of unbagged trash spilled out on the pavement and into the street. The pavement is wet and drops of rain can be seen falling into puddles on the adjacent street. A bag of trash sits in front of the fence for Hallets Cove Playground, which the sign on the fence indicates. A trash bin can be seen on the left and in the foreground is a bike rack. The Manhattan skyline is partly visible through a fog in the background. A pier filled with wood and trash runs out over the water, surrounded by a chain link fence. The Manhattan skyline can be seen in a fog through the distance. a green and black umbrella is abandoned in the middle of a sidewalk. In the background a cyclist bikes on the pavement and a white car drives on the street. Green traffic lights can be seen and the pavement is wet.

Melanie walked in Kendal with a hole in her shoe. She wore a peaked hat in case of Lake District rain… ‘it didn’t so that was a waste’. She took crayons, like the score base, but didn’t use them… ‘Another waste’. (She points out, however, that waste is not rubbish and it is best not to conflate the two). As she walks through the South Lakeland District Council, ‘Rubbish is barely visible’, perhaps the result of ‘lots of bins, council tax and engaged citizens’. Kendal is ‘much “cleaner”’ than the cities we walk through, but ‘lots of security’. Fences and grates with bits of green trying to pop through… the restricted nature of the score.

Looking through the hole of a trash bin, and then through a hold on the other side to see a wooden fence with green foliage poking out. green foliage and dirt seen through five slots in a grate on the ground. A wheelie bin next to a rock wall. It says South Lakeland District Council. A discarded mask sitting in grass in front of a tombstone. A rock wall with ivy on it can be seen in the background.

Liberty walked in Lewisham. South London. Inner, but not Central. She left her texts to a minimum and instead her pictures do the talking. Flowers bloom in the British Summer: Hollyhock on Sandrock Road. Pollen litters a Honda CR-V. Her own yellow outfit visible in the reflection of the boot handle. (Not quite a broken mirror selfie, but a nice parallel to some of her other walks. Alisa too is often drawn to mirrors on the streets). The pinks, purples and yellows of Lewisham reflecting the underlying colours of the score base. ‘The best colours’, she replied after the walk.

An orange and white traffic cone is starting to be covered by purple flowers and green leaves against a brick house with a window. On the right side ivy climbs up the wall next to a black drainpipe. On the right side is concrete which leads to an area with purple flowers growing up through green foliage. on the top purple flowers grow out of green leaves, on the bottom small rocks indicate the end of the dirt bed.

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