Joanna Magierecka

As Ingold defines it wayfaring is a wandering here and there, with little concern for arriving at a destination. Inhabitant knowledge is integrated alongly. Thus instead of the complementarity of a vertically integrated science of nature and a laterally integrated geography of location, wayfaring yields an alongly integrated, practical understanding of the lifeworld. Such knowledge is neither classified nor networked but meshworked (Gould, McLachlan, McDonald, 2021, p.154). This form of understanding the world corresponds to Silovas presidential address. Meshworked knowledge resembles Magiereckas (2023) concept of interweaving of different and divergent fragments of stories and history in a piece of art, to promote and facilitate a possible shared understanding of a phenomenon. A collective Story, crossing borders, heritage, History, and personal experience.

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As Ingold defines it wayfaring is a wandering here and there, with little concern for arriving at a destination. Inhabitant knowledge is integrated alongly. Thus instead of the complementarity of a vertically integrated science of nature and a laterally integrated geography of location, wayfaring yields an alongly integrated, practical understanding of the lifeworld. Such knowledge is neither classified nor networked but meshworked (Gould, McLachlan, McDonald, 2021, p.154). This form of understanding the world corresponds to Silovas presidential address. Meshworked knowledge resembles Magiereckas (2023) concept of interweaving of different and divergent fragments of stories and history in a piece of art, to promote and facilitate a possible shared understanding of a phenomenon. A collective Story, crossing borders, heritage, History, and personal experience.

Gould, McLachlan and McDonald (2021), as well as Boyle (2023) argue that water, through the repeated experience of cold-water swimming, becomes a liminal sphere. I can say that my habitual pattern has been disrupted and my perspective and connection to nature has changed through continuous ritual of cold-water swimming. Emerging to water of low degree separates me from what is safe and exposes my body to the real experience of danger. In that period, immersed, I go through a transformation. The body becomes central to the consciousness, absorbed into the present, creating connections with the elements, other humans, and non-humans.[1] Mediating this experience through art makes me become with water, and cold-water swimming sympoiesis (Harraway, 2016). I am, as the swimmers of “Bicheno” coffee club (Gould, McLachlan, McDonald, 2021) a wayfarer.

Introducing others to this experience, through relational aesthetics and art expressions, could create meeting points for future caretakers of the water resources. Relational aesthetics (Bourriaud, 1998) as an artform and movement rely upon interaction through art within a social context. According to Métais (2019), through Participatory Sense-Making (De Jaegher and Di Paolo 2007) and Levinas´ (1990) approach relational aesthetics becomes an expression where the participants not only interact but take responsibility for the others. In this context, also nature. This form of caretaking could promote an active citizenship in relation to water resources in a given context

 

[1] Referring to Denton and Aranda.

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References

Bourrieaud, N. 1998. Relational Aesthetics. Les presses du réel

Boyle, E. 2023. The Oceanic Feeling: Experiencing the Eternal through Swimming. Theory, Culture & Society 1–14 https://doi.org/10.1177/02632764231199896

Gould S., McLachlan F. and McDonald B. 2021. Swimming With the Bicheno “Coffee Club”: The Textured World of Wild Swimming. Journal of Sport and Social Issues 2021, Vol. 45(1) 39–59 DOI: 10.1177/0193723520928594

Latour, B. 2018 “Anthropocene Lecture: Bruno Latour.” Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin. https://youtu.be/UtaEJo-jo8Q.

Magierecka J. Building upon Ruins – Interweaving Metaphors. Journal for Artistic Research (JAR)  https://doi.org/10.22501/jar.1154089

Métais, F. 2019. Relational Aesthetics and Experience of Otherness. EUROPEAN SOCIETY FOR AESTHETICS CONFERENCE 2019, Jun 2019, Varsovie, Poland. Proceedings of the European Society for Aesthetics, Volume 11.  http://www.eurosa.org/proceedings/

Silova, I. 2021. Facing the Anthropocene: Comparative Education as Sympoies. Presidential Address. Comparative Education Review. Volume 65, Number 4. DOI https://doi.org/10.1086/716664