SUSO

Urban Earth

"Through the eyes of the Urban Geographer."

We have introduced you to Daniel Raven-Ellison before.  This a man with a compelling story to tell, and many still to write .... and of course photograph. Welcome to URBAN EARTH, only now in his words and with his video compilation of images.

"Cities are awesome places. They are as much an ecosystem as any tropical rainforest or coral reef. Inhabited by one of the most successful animals on the planet, humans, these urban masses are our nests. At some point in 2008 someone was born or moved into a town or city and tipped the balance so that now, for the first time in history, more people are living in urban than rural places. The home of free running, government, businesses, over 3 billion people and probably you – how well do we really know and understand these places? I wanted to get a new take on the concrete jungle and so it became my mission to start walking across some of the largest cities on Earth.

Exploration is a state of mind. Anyone can explore, everyone is an explorer and anywhere can be explored. From kissing a mouth to peering into the limits of visible outer space we all search for answers and experiences. For me exploration is all about searching for answers to questions even if you don’t know what they are when you set out. While trekking to the heart of tropical jungle forests may be distant and exotic, exploring near and familiar places is just as important.

Despite most of us living in cities few of us explore them properly. If you live in a city you probably live as an island hopper, living in one (island) area and using a car, bus or train to hop to other islands for school, work and places to chill out. For most people the spaces between and around these islands are left unexplored and remain confused or blank on their mental map. The reasons why we don’t go places are numerous with time, interest and fear all playing their part.

I am fascinated by urban exploration. I’m not only interested in cities themselves, but why so many people want to go on adventures across countryside and not urbanside. And, why when people do explore cities so many people visit landmarks (does Big Ben represent London?) that fail to capture the feel of a city but leave feeling they can ‘done’ and can tick off visiting that place? What does the city feel like away from the bias of guide books and commercial adverts?

For all these reasons and more URBAN EARTH was born.

URBAN EARTH is a project to walk across some of the planet’s largest cities. So far I have walked across Mexico City, Mumbai and London. In the UK I have also walked across Bristol, Tyneside, the West Yorkshire Urban Area and Manchester overnight. The lengths of the walks are in proportion to the urban footprint of the city. Dissatisfied by many approaches navigating urban areas the routes were carefully planned to reflect their distribution of wealth. To record the explorations I decide to take a forward pointing photograph every 8 steps so that I could create stop-motion films, allowing an audience to ‘zoom’ through and ‘pause’ the city.

By walking I feel more exposed to what the city has to offer. I am not protected by the speed of a bike or shielded by the armour of a car. The pace of a walk allows time to smell, hear, taste and communicate. Taking photographs tunes me into places even more, with the camera lens becoming like an antenna, with me feeling emotionally attracted to things, disappointed to have missed others and aware of how others may be seeing me.

URBAN EARTH is a project about imagination (to plan), creativity (to make) and determination (to complete) a series of physically, emotionally and intellectually challenging walks. For these reasons I contacted SUSO* to help me realise the URBAN EARTH dream and their team helped me to make the biggest walks happen.

Walking is a type of performance and a way to express yourself, it is also a form of activism. It is about asserting your right to explore and your freedom to roam. A group of us walked across Mexico City, a massive urban area which is often feared because of high rates of organised and violent crime. Of a 75km walk there was only a single kilometre stretch, a very poor area, where we feared for our safety. The most dangerous point of the walk was a play park with metal equipment that had been built under power lines. Étienne, now a close friend, climbed the slide the take a photograph and received a serious electric shock. Built on a traffic island between two busy roads this play area had been built in a crazy location. As Marilin, another friend said, all politicians should be forced to go on walks like this to see these kinds of issues.

Findings like this play park inspired those who walked across Mexico City to organise one across Guadalajara, the second largest urban area in Mexico. Over 100 people aged between 7 and 70 joined the walk and recorded problems to be fixed or addressed along the way. Over the last year these issues have been tackled and new walks organised.

Walking across London the city seemed empty most of the time. Apart from central postcodes and around tube stations, you can walk long distances and only see a few people. In Mumbai, India’s largest city, people are everywhere. From new and impoverished migrants living on the sides of roads to shoppers cramming into global high street chains, big contrasts and similarities are easy to see. Exploring to see smaller details are fascinating to track. In Mumbai I looked for where nature was fighting back against people. I also looked for where old Bombay (what Mumbai used to be called) could still be seen surviving in the modern and often suburbanised city.

URBAN EARTH has captured the imagination of many people. The project has inspired other walks, been included in street and academic books and the films seen online and at music festivals like Glastonbury. In 2011/2012 I am planning to walk across more of the world’s largest cities. As well as walking URBAN EARTH routes, I plan to do URBAN STORY walks that explore city extremes from the fastest growing to the most populated.

Follow @UrbanEarth on Twitter to follow my walks and to let me know about your own."

Here's Mexico City, a video of a snapshot created over three days in July 2008. That's 6423 images... one for every 8 steps of the walk (give or take...).
 

Categories SUSO Tags Photography

By Sammy on 27/2/11