The Chalk Path/Le Chemin de Craie
Folkestone Warren & Cap Blanc-Nez July 2024 – October 2025
Artist-led walk 16th August & Self-guided walks 6th Sept-19th Oct 2025 (see below for details)
Book Launch 17th August 2025 – Books available to buy from Folkestone Bookshop on Tontine Street
A journey through the Deep Time of the chalk cliffs at their closest point across the Channel
Here we stand, on the fragile edge of change… Our two lands were once one, the Sea has been here for less time than it has not, and North has not always been North… where do we fit into this cycle and what layer do we want our story to leave?
The Chalk Path began with searching for a way to express deep time and trying to understand where we fit in, we humans, so tiny compared to the epic scale of rock and sea, and yet, making an impact on the earth out of proportion to the time we have been here. It invites us to consider through our own bodies how we relate to land and sea and to time itself, by walking down through several million years of strata, and ending at the beginning, at the ever-shifting water, where we might find a new perspective.
Present and Future…
You can make the journey through a self-guided geo-located audio walk that will take you deep into the cliffs at Folkestone Warren and Cap Blanc Nez. The walk immerses the listener in the story of how the land formed and invites a reconsideration of our relationship with our ancient ancestors, the rocks; gently questioning our place in it all, as newcomers to this earth. The journey is guided by hand-illustrated maps that re-connect the land now called England and France. Walkers can follow a route on either side of the Channel, accompanied by English or French audio.
A new book featuring the texts of the audio walks alongside previously unpublished photographs and sketches is now available to purchase from Folkestone Bookshop, or you can email me to purchase a copy for delivery.
The Chalk Path self-guided walk originally ran during Summer 2024 and returns during the 2025 Folkestone Triennial Fringe.
Maps are available from Folkestone Bookshop, MUGS cafe (in Tram Road carpark) and East Cliff Coastwatch station throughout September and October – they contain the links to download the audio journey. Headphones and MP3 players are available to borrow from MUGS for a lo-fi version of the experience if you do not have a smartphone.
Past …
On Saturday 21st September 2024 we met the Autumn Equinox with an artist-led journey on two halves of the same land, at two edges of the same day. Alison and Dunkirk-based artist Élodie Merland led a small group beginning at sunrise in England and ending with sunset in France. On the journey we wore two halves of the same cloak, created with pigments from the rocks pushed up from beneath the cliffs over winter – the layers of greensand, clay and chalk blending us into the landscape and merging with and separating us from each other. Each walk concluded with a ritual of building a flint cairn, acknowledging our more-than-human ancestors, and setting an intention for the layer we want to leave for those who come after us.
Photographs and a film that capture a flavour of the walk can be seen below.
As part of SALT+EARTH Festival 2024 and the Year of the Geopark, an immersive two channel film and audio installation We Face Each Other was created through a collaborative process of walking and dialogue between Alison Neighbour and Gemma Riggs. It offers an alternative perspective on the simultaneous walk experience and re-unites the two chalk cliffs recently split by the Channel. The film was created at Abbotscliff in the UK and Cap Blanc Nez in France – two sites once connected by a landbridge, now facing each other across the Channel and still linking arms under the sea.
In the film the cliffs narrate their own story, with audiences invited to let the power of the landscape wash over and through them. It is an accessible way into challenging terrain that asks the audience to simply be small and in awe of the place within which we exist.
We Face Each Other was shown at Jelsa Bienale in July 2025.
We are looking for further opportunities to tour this installation in 2025/2026.
Created in collaboration with/Créé en collaboration avec:
Film We Face Each Other – Gemma Riggs
French text & performance for audio walk – Élodie Merland
Audio production for walk (UK) – Gemma Riggs
Audio production for walk (France) Sébastien Cabour
Additional voice work by Susanna Howard & Sébastien Cabour
Additional audio production for film installation by Simon Duck
Publicity by Rhiana Bonaterre
Photographs by Igor Emmerich, Gemma Riggs, Tom Olney
Film of artist-led walk by Peter Blach (Klip Films) with additional footage by Tom Olney
With thanks to geological and ecological advisors Melanie Wrigley, Andy Gale, Simon Drake, Sanjeev Gupta & Alain Trentesaux; and to Folkestone NCI Coastwatch Station, and CROSS MRCC Gris Nez for allowing us to record their VHF transmissions.
The Chalk Path/Chemin de Craie was originally an R&D commission for Folkestone Fringe, Creative Folkestone and Kent Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty as part of SALT+EARTH Festival of Landscape, Seascape and the Environment 2022, and further developed with their support in 2023. The 2024 iteration that brought the French landscape into the story is a further commission for SALT+EARTH Festival and the Year of the Geopark, in connection with the Kent Downs and Parc D’Opale bid to become a cross channel UNESCO Geopark. Work in 2024 was funded by Arts Council England, Parc naturel régional des caps et marais d’Opale, The Geologists Association Curry Fund, Folkestone Fringe, Eurotunnel Le Shuttle, and Kent Downs National Landscape. The work in France was funded by the Green Fund, a scheme established by the Ministry of Ecological Transition and Territorial Cohesion to accelerate the ecological transition in territories. It is intended to finance projects presented by local authorities and their public or private partners in three areas: environmental performance, adaptation of the territory to climate change, and improvement of the living environment.
The publication is funded by the Geologists Association Curry Fund.
