Three months after they left Groningen with a treadmill, Lily Dollner and Olivier Arts have arrived in Sweden. Just in time for the Supermarket Art Fair. An experience richer.
It was a weird plan when they came up with it and it stayed weird when they executed it. At the invitation of the Sign gallery, Lily Dollner and Olivier Arts have made a journey on foot through northern Groningen, Germany, Denmark with final destination Sweden in recent weeks.
Behind them they dragged a wagon with a treadmill on top of their luggage. Along the way they invited people to take a walk on the band.
And people did it too, Dollner and Arts say over the phone now that they have arrived at their destination: Stockholm, where the Supermarket Art Fair starts on Wednesday. The intention is that the duo will give a presentation at the fair entitled Away .
They will use image and sound material that has been collected along the way. This may include the photo that was sent to the world via their internet log after ten days of walking. On display was an ugly flesh wound on Arts’ ankle, the result of an ‘accident’ during carnival when a float ran over his foot.
‘It won’t get any better’
“The wound got infected, so I had to stay behind on a farm in Germany for a few days,” says Arts. As Dollner kept going, he managed to recover. That is, now in Sweden there is still a wound. “I continued on Crocs. My ankle is not going to be all right anymore, I’m afraid.”
Dollner fared better. “I had a bad cough for a while, but that’s it,” she says. “Walking is very healthy.”
The invitation to take a seat on the treadmill received a pitying but enthusiastic response. “Sometimes it led to uncomfortable situations. For example, we got someone on tape who had lived on a dairy farm all his life and worked hard day in and day out. Asking someone like that made it dumber than it already was.”
Gaining experience versus collecting objects
What Dollner and Arts with Away aim is multifaceted and ambiguous. In the first place, inspired by the British walking artist Hamish Fulton, they want to find out to what extent it is true that gaining experiences is more important than collecting objects. Secondly, the duo wants to discover how far you can get with a minimum of resources.
In addition to an interactive function, the treadmill also had something symbolic. The object shows that modern man invents objects that apparently lead to progress, but offer no real progress.
“Initially we wanted to cover a distance and map it out,” says Dollner. Along the way, the emphasis became more on meeting people and seeing how they live their lives. On a farm where physical work is done, some people achieve comfort with admirably few resources.”
‘We ate like horses’
To put themselves to the test, the duo left with as little gear as possible. ,,It was confrontational to experience how much we began to long for comfort. This manifested itself, for example, in a desire for food. Sometimes a day of walking in beautiful nature and wildlife ended at McDonalds. Because of the availability of wifi, but also because of the fast food. We ate like horses.”
The performance was expressly intended as a physical commentary on consumer society. ,,When we came up with this, it had something ironic, also because we had to buy all kinds of outdoor gear to complete the trip. That should be possible without it, you would think. Good stuff is very useful. Incidentally, outdoor gear is very common here in Sweden, even if you don’t do anything outdoors.”
Asked if the adventure has given them new insights as an artist, Dollner says she has never been so inward-looking. “I have been able to think about every part of my life for the past 2.5 months in a row. It led to questions about what is really important and what I, as an artist, want to share with others, even if I am not making objects.”
‘You really meet angels along the way’
Arts was struck by the generosity along the way. “Whether we texted or called people, or just ran into someone, the helpfulness was enormous. In Germany, the wagon got a flat tire and we stood helpless by the side of the road. Until a man stopped who didn’t speak a word of English and solved our problem in no time. You really meet angels.”
Building an installation for the Supermarket Art Fair will be a challenge, Dollner and Arts fear. According to Hamish Fulton, an experience is more important than an object. Now it is up to us to turn our gigantic experience into a small presentation that visitors to the exhibition can value. That is perhaps the most absurd part of this adventure. It’s a paradox. We are doomed to fail.”
They don’t know yet what will happen to the treadmill. “He’s definitely not going to the landfill. It has become an object of art, more than an ordinary object. First we first bring him back to the Netherlands. With the plane. Bizarre actually.”
For more about the walking performance by Lily Dollner and Olivier Arts see www.polarsteps.com/LilyandOlivier and sign2.nl/