Writing 1: Ephemeral/Site

 In Laurene Vaughan’s Walking the Line: Affectively Understanding and Communicating the Complexity of Place, the act of walking is reframed as a mapping method, not through data points or grids, but through embodied sensorial experience, as a performative and creative act that maps the lived experience of a place. Vaughan’s analysis of artist Richard Long positions his walks not as journeys from one location to another, but as performances that transform movement into meaning. Richard Long’s practice, where the walk itself becomes the artwork, is not about conquering the land, but about responding to it, “treading lightly” while making sense of distance, terrain, and time. This idea that the body can inscribe knowledge onto a landscape softly, and non-invasively resonated with me because it suggests that we don’t have to claim land to understand it. We can simply move through it, attentively, and that alone can generate insight. 

This same sensitivity is deeply present in Rivers and Tides, the documentary about Andy Goldsworthy. Watching him construct sculptures out of sticks, leaves, or ice, only for them to be swept away or decay, reminded me of Vaughan’s notion that artistic engagement in that place is not about permanence but presence. Both Goldsworthy and Long seem to accept that time, weather, and terrain are not obstacles; they are collaborators. Both artists share an assumption that knowledge of place comes through touch, rhythm, and time spent “being with” the land rather than viewing it from above. Goldsworthy seems less concerned with the final image than with the process: the rhythm of the tide, the crack of melting ice, the wind displacing his materials. Like Long’s annotated maps or lines traced across vast distances, Goldsworthy’s temporary installations become records of human interaction with the ever-changing world. In both cases, there’s a profound humility, a willingness to be changed by the environment instead of trying to change it. 

Both the article and the film helped me rethink how we define place. It’s not just about location but also the relationship, the dynamic exchange between body, time, and terrain. While maps traditionally flatten and fix a place in time, Long and Goldsworthy offer alternative “maps” that reflect temporality, vulnerability, and even failure. Their work shows that to truly engage with nature, one must be receptive, not only observant. For me, this opens up a powerful idea, maybe knowing a place is less about measuring it and more about being moved by it. Their practices don’t just depict landscapes, they are conversing with them, messy and deeply felt.