FanSHEN
Newcastle based artist collective FanSHEN, Rachel Briscoe and Dan Barnard, are were in residence with us in February 2017, considering how we can create spaces for groups who never come into contact and who hold opposing views to encounter each other.
They developed Heartlines. Two strangers take a walk together, each holding a precious object that pulses with the other person’s heartbeat.
Maybe they don’t talk, maybe it’s enough to walk in silence, feeling their companion’s heart beat. Maybe conversation comes easily. Maybe they need some starting points: along their route they encounter five handmade billboards, each featuring a question developed with local people, questions that they would like walkers to consider as they pass through the landscape with a person who is potentially very different to them.
Participants take this walk. They encounter the questions. They listen to how the world looks from where the other person is – and feel their heartbeat quicken and slow as they pass through different physical and emotional terrain. If you hold a different opinion, do you say anything? Can sharing a physical direction and being able to feel - quite literally - the other person’s emotions allow you to empathise with them?
On arriving back at the start, the two walkers take a photo together and each write down one thing that sticks with them from the walk. These impressions, the questions, a map of the walk and data from the heart sensors appear on a growing online archive.
They developed Heartlines. Two strangers take a walk together, each holding a precious object that pulses with the other person’s heartbeat.
Maybe they don’t talk, maybe it’s enough to walk in silence, feeling their companion’s heart beat. Maybe conversation comes easily. Maybe they need some starting points: along their route they encounter five handmade billboards, each featuring a question developed with local people, questions that they would like walkers to consider as they pass through the landscape with a person who is potentially very different to them.
Participants take this walk. They encounter the questions. They listen to how the world looks from where the other person is – and feel their heartbeat quicken and slow as they pass through different physical and emotional terrain. If you hold a different opinion, do you say anything? Can sharing a physical direction and being able to feel - quite literally - the other person’s emotions allow you to empathise with them?
On arriving back at the start, the two walkers take a photo together and each write down one thing that sticks with them from the walk. These impressions, the questions, a map of the walk and data from the heart sensors appear on a growing online archive.