Lines Made by Walking Louise Menzies

First published in Scape Biennial catalogue , 2006

Experienced as a series of projected 35mm slides unfolding at automated one-second intervals, Lines Made By Walking (2003) reveals the certain actions of an individual amidst a crowd. More specifically, these are the actions of the artist herself walking back and forth as she attempts to crave a line within the space of a crowded strip of commuters in central London. Intentionally recalling Richard Long’s 1967 piece A Line Made By Walking, Young inserts in our memories the politicised acts of the neo avant-garde, while suggesting how such actions of an individual can still offer a negotiation of space within our late capitalist situation.

Performed in public space, Young’s work sharply sketches the globalised daily reality of the worker and suggests an attempt at updating contemporary relationships between corporate and cultural politics. Dressed in a suit like those around her, in many ways Young is a nameless face in the crowd; collapsing the distances of artist, worker and audience. Over time however, her self-directed and purposeful walking offers us a form of resistance drawn from the very structures it seeks to resist. In place of Long’s flattened grass, we are left with negative urban space.