Lost on Purpose (mostly)

For Gwen Walker, Artistic Wandering is not just a research subject for her PhD but a deeply personal embodiment of self-discovery. For her PhD, Gwen coined the term ‘artistic wandering’ which she defined as “The self-participatory act of wandering as an artwork where the physical art objects and artifacts produced during become secondary to the artist’s phenomenological experience of wandering.” 

This self-participatory act becomes more than a theoretical exploration; it's a lived experience as artwork. Lost on Purpose (Mostly) captures Walker's intimate dance between seeking and losing – crafting a visual and tactile chronicle of her journey through life, particularly her recent sojourn in Iceland.

Gwen Walker, Lost on purpose (mostly) 2023 (photography) 

Walker's sense of displacement, of never quite belonging, propels her forward. Each step she takes, deliberate or unintentional, her travels aren’t merely about traversing landscapes, they are also about piecing together a mosaic of fragmented memories. The gaps in her personal timeline, the blurred edges of past recollections, find their expression through her art.

Although Walker does not see herself as a photographer, photography acts as an external hard drive, cataloguing the moments and sights that speak to her soul. Walker explains,

“I’m not a photographer. Well, at least not in the way people tend to categorise me as one. I frequently break the ‘rules’ of photography and often take boring photos (both of which annoy photographers and I like that).” – from the preface of The Lost Archive (2023). 

Her photos are windows into Walker's psyche, sometimes clear and other times hazed by the mists of time. In juxtaposition, her crochet works manifest a more tactile sense of memory. Every loop and stitch is a meditation, an act of embedding experiences into tangible form.

The space of the exhibition is an invitation to drift, to find resonance in the curated chaos, to touch, see, and immerse. Walker doesn't dictate a path, instead offering a landscape for visitors to chart their own courses, to wander amidst her memories and perhaps reflect on their own.

Each piece in this exhibition isn't merely an artwork – they are waypoints in Walker's Artistic Wandering, markers of moments where she paused, felt, and immortalized. Lost on Purpose (Mostly) isn't just an exhibition; it's a culmination of Walker's PhD research and a shared exploration of the beautifully complex terrain of memory, identity, and the ethereal landscapes of Iceland.