Being :: Wanderers

We love to walk.

And look and discover and wonder.

We nature hike, do various scavenger walks, and walking to the library or dinner is a habitual part of of life.

But today I want to share  a different type of walk; a family de´rive.

The term de´rive is French and was an activity by the Situationists of the 1950′s and 1960′s as a way of interacting with the psycho-geography of a place. That is a complicated way of saying they wandered around aimlessly. This seems so simple, but when you remove motive from a walk, what else do you have? What is it that helps you decide which way to go? What pulls you along and what do you find along the way?

This is a new way to experience a place and especially powerful with children. I worked several summers in Paris with an art program and the assignment for each student the first day was to do an de´rive by themselves. They picked random locations from a hat and then left for the afternoon, returning that evening with their experience and some form of quick art. It was an amazing project for these students and got them immediately connected to their surroundings.

I love to do this with my kids and we are actually able to do it in our small urban neighborhood. It also works if you have to drive or take public transportation to a location. We head out with a camera, a little money, a camera and a notebook and we see where we end up. We sneak down alleys, hang out in parks, look behind structures and enter public buildings.

Recently, we went wondering around our local college campus. This is not too unusual, we hang out over there a lot. But this time was different. Instead of heading to swim class, or to look at our favorite Frank Lloyd Wright building, we simply wandered. We strayed further and further off the familiar routes we typically take.

Up stairs, around corners…when anyone would say, “let’s see what is over here,” we would.

We ended up in a tucked away art department by following an interesting collection of graffiti. We read them as signs that led us to the next location (a kiln with broken pottery, a closed up room with art stacked and falling, so much discarded art in hallways…). It was so completely absorbing, fascinating and even magical. We were in flow, together! Time ceased as the journey unfolded. My kids thought it was the best adventure and breathlessly exclaimed, “wow!” and “look at this!” with each new discovery.  Guy DeBord wrote about the different ambiances and zones within an urban area, and we we figured that we stumbled upon an unknown zone within the college campus we thought we knew so well. (We had actually walked in this area before, but zones are fleeting and change over time, so habitual wandering is useful).

Traditionally, in a de´rive, there is an expectation that you will make some sort of art based on your exploration. This art can be made while on the de´rive or when you return home, but the idea is that you record the walk in some manner. Photography is easy, but you might also make a map, take video or audio recordings, write something, or bring pieces back from the journey to use in your studio. We opted for photographing the graffiti that had enchanted us.

What would it be like to be lost with your children? Could you become co-explorers, mapping a new geography together?