The Chalk Path/Le Chemin de Craie
Folkestone Warren & Cap Blanc Nez 2024
The Chalk Path returns in 2024…
Journey through the Deep Time of the chalk cliffs at their closest point across the Channel.
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…
The Chalk Path/Le Chemin de Craie is a bilingual self-guided audio walk through Folkestone Warren and Cap Blanc Nez that invites you to walk down through deep time, to reflect on the past and reimagine the future, considering the enormity of time and it’s relationship to our own human existence and impact.
Details of how to take the walk will be announced before the launch on 6th July. You can make the journey in your own time, whenever you like… it will take about an hour. You’ll need a pair of headphones and a smartphone, or you can borrow an MP3 player from us. Why not visit both sides and experience the whole story? Perhaps your journey will be shared by a walker on the other side, looking across, seeking a connection that transcends human experience. The walk is available in both English and French on both sides of the Channel and it is free.
On Saturday 21st September we meet the Autumn Equinox with an artist-led journey on two halves of the same land, at two edges of the same day. Join us for this special occasion where Alison and Elodie will lead a ceremonial version of the walk for a small group to make the journey together at sunrise in England and sunset in France. Booking details will be announced soon.
As part of SALT+EARTH Festival 2024 we will also be sharing a filmic installation that offers an alternative perspective on the simultaneous walk experience and re-unites the two chalk cliffs recently split by the Channel.
Created in collaboration with:
Gemma Riggs (audio & film)
Élodie Merland (writing & voice- Francais)
Sébastien Cabour (audio)
Additional voice work by Susanna Howard
Publicity by Rhiana Bonaterre
BACKGROUND ON THE WORK
This process began with searching for a way to express the vast amount of time held in the chalk cliffs and trying to understand where we fit in: we tiny humans, almost insignificant compared to the epic scale of chalk, clay, and sea, and yet, making an impact on the earth out of proportion to the time we have been here and to our part in the cycle.
The research journey led me down many avenues: from re-imagining a chalk land bridge connecting us to France; to meeting geologists and land managers and confronting numbers of such incomprehensible magnitude I began to wonder if our man-made system of telling time even worked when the human brain is not equipped to understand so many zeros; and I looked instead to the ways the land and sea mark the passage of time in repeating patterns.
I wanted to physicalise this sense of time and scale on the landscape itself, and to invite people to consider through their own bodies how we relate to the land and sea by literally walking down through time (a journey of several million years from the top to the bottom of the chalk cliffs), and ending at the beginning, at the sea, where they might discover a new perspective on the journey, the place, and ourselves.
As we look to the future, we might look at the materials and way of living of our ancestors and try to slow down a little to planetary time to gain some perspective on our place in the world and the impact we are making. I hope the experience of The Chalk Path makes space for this.
EPISODE 1… In September 2022, as part of SALT + EARTH Festival in connection with Kent AONB’s bid to become a Geopark, I created Chalk Coracle, and led people on a walk down through time, from the top to the bottom of Abbotscliffe, encountering provocations along the route that made space for thinking about scale and our connection to this time and this place. The brave among the group tried solo outings in a coracle, where they looked back at the distance they had covered and could fully feel the epic scale of the cliffs in relation to the vulnerability of their own bodies on the water in a hand-built boat.
EPISODE 2… In September 2023 the walk became an audio journey, starting from East Cliff Coastwatch Station and inviting travellers to tune into the VHF radio and reveal layers of time as they descended through the cliffs into Folkestone Warren to meet the sea, where they searched for an ancestor on the beach and considered what layer they wished to leave beyond their own lifetimes.
With thanks to geological and ecological advisors Melanie Wrigley, Andy Gale, Simon Drake, Sanjeev Gupta & Alain Trentesaux; Folkestone NCI Coastwatch Station, and CROSS MRCC Gris Nez.
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 Chalk Path/Chemin de Craie was originally commissioned by 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 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.
Above film by Clare Unsworth from R&D at Folkestone Warren 2022.