Five Walks is a composite digital image that documents numerous walks. Five key surfaces are repeatedly revisited, focussing on (from left to right): twigs embedded in the ground; the path of sunlight and shadows; exposed tree roots; rain flow-paths and the incised lines left by absent branches. The work captures the subtle, shifting tones of changing surfaces and ground colour during walks across the summer and spring of 2020/21. For me the images became symbolic of tenacity, transience, healing, regeneration and longevity, all of which seem to reflect the heightened awareness brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. Each image flows into its neighbour meaning that the image can be read in any direction – horizontally, vertically or diagonally. I think of it as a woven visual narrative.
https://www.chi.ac.uk/staff/dr-shirley-chubb
Shirley Chubb is a Brighton-based artist whose work focuses on broadening the collaborative potential of the visual arts and involves the use of artefacts, film and digital technologies. She is Emerita Reader in Interdisciplinary Art at the University of Chichester and an Honorary Fellow in the School of Health Sciences, University of Brighton. Shirley’s research is focused on the significance of walking through particular environments and landscapes where she works with physiotherapists and volunteer participants. She was lead researcher on the Wellcome Trust funded Significant Walks project and holds the 2021 Creative Physiotherapy Scholarship at Auckland University of Technology working within the Faculty of Health and Environmental Sciences.