Sweat Mapping

From 1 to 6 July 2024, the second Walking Art and Relational Geographies Encounter took place in Girona and Banyoles in Spain. Walking artists from all over the world met to exchange ideas. On the hike from Girona to Banyoles led by Compañía La Soledad, lerjentours realised her artistic contribution «Sweat Mapping»:

Thermoregulation through sweat gave early hominids a clear advantage when hunting. In contrast to many of its prey animals, Homo erectus already possessed many times more sweat glands and was able to hunt for endurance. Even today, humans cannot walk in the heat without sweat. The evaporation of sweat cools our bodies. Sweat, hidrós in Greek, consists of 99 per cent water. Walking in the summer heat, which according to projections will increase due to the deteriorating climate, is therefore not possible without sweat.

On the walk together from Girona to Banyoles, lerjentours did talk to participants about walking in the heat and ask them for drops of sweat/sweat liquid to make a sweat mapping. The drops were applied to a piece of glass, following a line of the natural water system between Girona and Banyoles, which was shown on a sketch under the glass. In the end, the sketch with the water system was removed and only a very fine drawing of almost invisible sweat residue remained on the glass. The next evening, the project was concluded with a short performance on the shore of Lake Banyoles, in which the drawings on the glass shimmered in the evening light. A short audio piece was created afterwards from the sweat conversations held during the hike.

Photos: Miguel Bandeira Duarte

On the same walk artist Julie Poitras Santos contributed with her project: terra mòbil / tierra móvil / moving earth.

"The word 'transhumance' comes from the Latin terms 'trans' (through) and 'humus' (earth), and it means 'crossing through the lands, crossing the ground, passing through the terrain'. Deleuze and Guattari present the concept of transhumance in A Thousand Plateaux (1987), as a context for mobility. Transhumance goes beyond physical or geographic nomadism and approaches mobility through philosophical and political ideas of flexibility, fluidity, transience, crossings – the ‘nomadic thought’ as a transformative process. Living beings, in an adaptive strategy to environmental conditions, have had to move at one time or another. In this broad inventory of life we find animal migrations, pastoral transhumance, the migrations of human communities (escapes, exiles, voluntary migrations and migratory imaginaries), nomadic life systems (which have practically disappeared in our world) and territorial explorations (both past and present). For the Walking Arts and Relational Geographies Encounters 2024, we propose to explore all these movements, their differences and their similarities –  in search of what we humans have in common with other living beings."

Organized by Contemporary Art Center Nau Côclea, Camallera, with partners.