dogswalkme

Susan Detwiler lives in a rural area on the edge of a maple forest. Her art practice is based on her interactions and observations in the surrounding natural environment. For years she has maintained a daily walking practice which takes her through feral field, swamp and woodlot. With dogswalkme, Detwiler continues to explore the terrain at the fringes of development: the farm fields, fallow land and abandoned industrial sites often ignored or left idle within the intense suburban sprawl and urban infill of the region. Detwiler’s valuing of these places as sites of potent personal engagement runs in stark contrast to the dominant definition of land use “value” in the area. Working with simple head-cam technology (carried by herself and her dogs) Detwiler’s multi-perspective video records the complex interactions between artist, dogs and the landscape they traverse. The placement of the head-cams frames part of their faces making them appear like peculiar creatures in a strange terrain. There’s a magical, otherworldly quality as they maneuver through forest, field and quarry with no clear sense of purpose or destination. Detwiler offers a psychogeographic exploration that challenges current land use practice and positions the pace of the body, the cadence of unaided human movement through the landscape, as the critical platform for understanding the immediate environment.