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WALKING THE EARTH: OREGON
Permanent public video art installation at the Portland International Airport (PDX), Oregon, displayed on two digital screens, each measuring 20 x 140 feet. Duration: 60 minutes. Inauguration date: January 30, 2025. 

Walking The Earth is a long-term project I began in Iceland in 2013, which I will complete the day I cease to exist. The body of work explores walking as a research and art practice, serving as a meditation on how ‘space’ becomes ‘place’ when imbued with our presence. To experience the earth on a slow walk, the objective is to intentionally shift from reaching a destination to being fully present in the journey. This practice, also known as mindful walking, helps to quiet mental chatter and deepen your connection with the natural world by engaging all your senses—an embodied experience. Paying attention enables us to instill the act of walking with greater significance. 

“Walking centers the body in a research practice. The body that gets cold, sweaty, thirsty, or blistered. The body that encompasses feelings, emotions, prejudices, as well as intellect... It is about the visceral exchanges between a sensing body in motion and the bodies of knowledge sequestered in the phenomena that make up a site of research.”— Alice Twemlow, Walking as Research Practice, 2024.

Walking The Earth is an ever-growing, multi-channel video installation consisting of a series of vertical screens, each displaying a video recording of the artist walking the earth along the horizon line.
 





The architect Sharron van der Meulen described her vision for the new PDX terminal as creating ‘spaces drawn on the fresh feeling of walking through our region’s many parks.’ This became an opportunity to add a new chapter to my long-term project. In 'Walking the Earth: Oregon,' the human figure traverses all nine ecoregions of the state, from the Willamette Valley to the Columbia Plateau. The final video artwork consists of 54 vertical landscapes, each depicting a record of the artist walking the earth along the horizon line. Experienced in the monumental digital screens, with three cycles of 18 walks each (nine per digital canvas), the nature walks begin at dawn and culminate at dusk. The ecoregions depicted are (from left to right): Near Shore, Coastal Range, Willamette Valley, Klamath Mountains, West Cascades, East Cascades, Columbia Plateau, Blue Mountains, and North Basin & Range. 'Walking the Earth: Oregon' is an encounter with the natural forces that govern its wide-open spaces. Our walker explores the land, free to wander at will wherever her feet and legs might carry her, safe to saunter into the landscape unfolding before her, in command of the path she chooses, in communion with the Earth she is a part of, meandering between the mundane and the otherworldly, this union of walking the Earth intimately entails. Every step is a heartbeat… is a breath of life. One imagines our walker, entwined with the land and its ecologies, if for an instant, and is happy. To create the artwork, my life and studio partner, Adam Eeuwens, and I conducted thorough research on the region, rented a camper van, and, relying on multiple maps and weather apps, traveled for a month through sun, wind, rain, and snow. We traversed the state from coast to desert and mountains, performing and documenting the earth walks and engaging at a human scale with Oregon’s diverse ecologies and awe-inspiring landscapes. Meticulous editing and visual effects create an otherworldly experience as the human figure seamlessly transitions from one landscape to another. I am grateful for my very international creative team: Producer: Adam Eeuwens, Video Editor: Rahat Mahajan (India); VFX: Mohit Sebastian (Malaysia); Assistant Video Editor: Chuyu Liu (China); and Bill and Julia Wayne of Abbey Ridge Vineyard, Dundee, Oregon, for inviting us to document on their beautiful land. This project was made possible with support from the Montalvo Arts Center in Saratoga, CA.