a film by Dario J Laganà
Embarking on a full sustainable solo circular walking tour of Norway to elevate my affinity for walking into a more consolidated artistic practice. Exposing my body to the wild, raw, unforgiven environment, the journey is a blend of performance and introspection, where slowness and solitude are the preconditions to uncover vulnerabilities, to create a deeper connection with the landscape and the weather, exploring connections between nomadism, discipline, rituality and energy
In Norway, my carbon-free journey involves camping and walking to showcase the fusion of slowness and sustainability, aligning with nature and societal deceleration. To ease the load, I've designed a wheeled trolley to carry equipment and goods, including a solar panel electric motor, aiding uphill travel - totaling 160W. Purifying water with filters, sourcing local food, and single-night tent setups during walks between inhabited places ensure eco-friendly practices. It's not a battle against nature and it's not a trip of loathing humanity.
It's not a challenge-against. It is a path of reappropriation of one's spiritual self, which is built with effort. Walking on foot is marking time in kilometers. it's your personal pace, the clock of your gait, the ability to predict where one will be, based on a personal natural speed.
original Music Will Gardner will-gardner.com
Duration: 13 min - English with English / Italian / German subtitles
FULL LOGBOOK
So this is the third rain shower for today. It's getting a bit annoying and heavy on my body. The weather is still not the best. There were some parts with sun but most of it was coming and going. Let's see.
The hardest part to start the trip with the rain is that you need to establish routines. And because it's raining it's very hard to remember where you put things, organize your luggage and on top of it, the trolley is to be set up.
Today is a half-and-half day and I'm going to the city so at least I try to re-breathe, gain some energy because yesterday was very hard, I slept a lot. And yeah, let's see in the next few days how it works out. But for today just city walking.
I like nature when it's raw, wild and unforgiving. And this wind is formidable. Nature is down to us. It's not playing with us. It's not helping us or against us. It just exists. We are the ones who have to adapt to it. So enjoy the wild.
These woods are amazing and I'm all alone in this beautiful place. I crossed the gate from a farm and then I went deeper into the woods. I'm not sure where it leads but it's majestic. There is always a crazy moment for which I go in trance. I started walking and always doing the same movement with my legs and body and my mind got completely lost in thoughts. I actually don't realize how fast I'm walking or how long or how much is raining. It's just a really crazy trance experience where you just repeat and repeat and repeat the same movement.
It was a very hard day today. I broke the trolley two times. I was under heavy rain four times and the trolley broke in the middle of the road which was not funny at all. I had to repair it and luckily it will last but I don't know for how long. And in the end I did these 32 kilometers to get here.
This is the sand which is lovely and I really fucking deserve my beer. This is me at the end of the day.
I'm exhausted. I walked for almost 40 kilometers and I took a ferry in between. I didn't expect to walk so much and it was raining all day long. Now it just stopped. I'm wet. My socks are full of water and I think it's the longest I walked in, I don't know, with this trolley on the back. It's been the longest stretch ever. Just one kilometer to the camp. I need to rest. I need a shower.
And I need my fucking beer.
So what I did was to lower the center of gravity of the trolley and to repair a couple of parts. So this morning was repairing time and I hope it's working better. It finally turns better. I'm not sure if everything is really working.
This is kind of ridiculous. I'm walking like this because I've been surrounded by so many flies for three or four kilometers. It might be my sweat. It might be the rain. I mean, because there are no humans around me. But fuck, they are annoying as hell.
It's fucking cool. A guy just stopped by and gave me a bottle of soda from his car window. Smiling and saying: you need one. And he said, what the fuck are you doing? I said, I'm just going for 1,000 kilometers. And he told me, you're crazy. And then he just left.
It was amazing. Very nice.
When we hike, we get the illusion of leaving no trace. Or at least we try our best not to leave traces. But it's still an illusion because every time we walk, every time we move into nature, we force animals to move as well. And every time we walk the same trail, plants are not welcome. We destroy the path from left to right and we trace a road. But the beauty of it is that nature doesn't care. It will adapt to us and we'll grow again in another place. We'll move as much as possible. What we did was to destroy the opportunity for nature to move when we created boxes around it. And then the beginning of the end for them to adapt to us. And one day we will disappear and they will move free again.
There is no shame in resting, taking breaks and saying you can't make it anymore. Nobody's watching. If you're alone, the choices you make are for your own good. And the last 500 meters uphill can be very tough.
I'm starting to describe what home means when you are on the road like this. And home is inside the tent. Outside the environment is changing every time. Now I'm on top of a mountain. It can be by the sea. And the environment can be harsh. But inside everything is calm. The space is always the same. You always arrange your belongings in the same way. And give you a kind of familiar feeling. And this is the closest thing till now that you can call home no matter what the outside world is about.
We started the worst way ever. I've been hit by maggots tonight. A cloud of them. I don't know what the fuck happened. Usually they don't bite me so much.
It was raining all night long. Now there's a break. It is the same kind of rain of the first week that was whining about. But circumstances are changing. I'm more focused, more prepared.
I'm going uphill now. So it doesn't really look great. But again, we walk. And today is a long walk. Maybe 45 km. Because at the end of the road there is a campsite and a supermarket. And today is Sunday. Would like to get some food. Something warm to cook.
The trolley is an extension of my ability to be independent on the road. Because I have everything with me. It's a shelter. It's protecting me from the cars. Because it's bulky. Especially now with the solar panels. So it is really important to have it with me. And on top of that is also a social tool. People stop me with the car. Or when I arrive at the campsite. People gather and usually ask me what is it? What are you doing with it? It's also helping me to create a structure of people of interest around me and my trip.
This part of the road is way too extreme for the trolley. I think I have to give up. And start again tomorrow from some other place. I need to find a place for the tent for the night. There are no trains. And it is raining.
We can count time. We can understand that the slower we go, the more details we can imprint in our memories. Going from uphill to down to the fjords means understanding the difference in vegetation. In the structure of the landscape. See that the flowers are not the same. And that we can really enjoy nature as it changes around us. The same is not when you walk fast. Or you have a bike. Or you go by car. Or you have a train. Or an airplane. You see the immensity of the world from behind.
I didn't expect that. I know it was stiff. But this is kind of a lot more. It's a road for horses, not for men. Although I feel like a donkey.
There's a break in the rain. Bit of sun. Let's enjoy it because I don't think we'll last too very very long.
Coffee is one of the rituals that helps me to cool down a bit in the morning. Unfortunately, I will just wake up, pack everything very quickly and start walking again. And it's not healthy. You need something to re-breathe, regain your energy and re-establish your balance before walking. And I found out that coffee, the waiting for the coffee, doing the coffee and drinking it helps me a lot to establish this new balance. And it is really good because I need to wait, calm down, slow down a lot. And then in the end, I can just move on and keep on walking.
I don't have a lot of stories for today. Yesterday was very hard. And I arrived at the campsite very late. Got tea, went to sleep. I fixed the trolley and this morning I'm on my way to the coast. But I had to follow a road which is on the side of the highway, which I don't like.
My body is very heavy. I think yesterday I stretched a bit too much. And I'm really slow and clumsy. But it's ok. I'll try to get the best out of it. Even though I'm not really in the best walking mood. But at least the trolley is fixed for now. Talking about things that you lose on the road. I lost my filtered water bottle and I had to go back 2 km downhill. I left the trolley so at least my stupidity is paying half way back. And fuck it.
Before leaving I was speculating with my friend Lucia about the meaning of this practice. And she came out with this keyword that resonated to me a lot. Which is exposure. Obviously I'm exposing my body to the wind and the rain and the sun. So to nature as it is. But it also has a meaning of putting the body at the center of the action. And to expose myself as a person to this adventure and to this practice as a functional element of the journey. So not only documenting what I see, but documenting also what I'm doing. And recording these videos is also part of it. To make a better documentation of all the actions that compete into the creation of my artworks at the end of the road.
I don't pretend for people to understand why I'm doing this. Some people think that I'm crazy. Some other people think this is extreme. And I have to admit that it is at least exotic.
Perception of time has shifted very rapidly during the last weeks. I moved from a very anxious beginning when I had to be sure that all the preparation for the trip was enough for 1000 km. And thoughts and actions were overlapping. And then all of a sudden all this was gone. I'm embracing the long days that this country can offer you. And making more breaks.
Enjoying nature. Watching more closely the small elements of nature. And the beneficial effect of this is that at the end of the day the amount of kilometers that I'm able to do is the same. So the overwhelming beginning was not beneficial for my trip. And now everything is getting much easier.
I'm crossing a valley of 80 km without any villages and no human beings around. Apart from some cars.
It's all about rocks and some small trees and the mountains with the snow in the background. And it's a good opportunity to embrace wilderness and solitude. I know that people are afraid of being alone and most people might not be comfortable about doing a trip like this when you are all alone and you are. And you know that in the next 80 km there's nobody. But it's also an opportunity to regain social energy. To empower yourself with the fact that being alone is not a burden but is something that you can embrace. And feel your body, feel nature. And go back to life, to the social life we know with more energy and a bit more passion about interacting with people.
I also wanted to give myself the opportunity to be bored. To experience this whole world around me to the point that there's nothing here. The cultural gap is gone. The immense landscape is known. And you are actually just walking.
I started traveling on foot a bit because I was reading Kerouac and the regeneration.
I will try for myself what it means to travel for the only reason of traveling. The experience of being alone on the road and to create connections that are not obvious. So as far as this is exotic, I am in my element. I'm not overdoing it. I'm just trying to get to a point for which I am completely confident.
In all the choices I'm doing and have the ability to change paths when it's necessary. No matter how many kilometers a day you do, the last two are the hardest ones. Even if you know where you're going or how far is it, it is really crazy how all of a sudden your body
goes down with energy and just wants to arrive. And it is so long.
After walking for weeks like this, I'm still very curious about what's behind the next curve or the next valley. On how the landscape will change when I go downhill. And this is
the center of this trip, which is all about curiosity. And it is also a bit scary because a part of me knows that I might go on forever like this because this curiosity and these changes will never end whenever you travel along.
And I know that I have to go back home. And this is why I give myself these 1000 kilometers.
Some days are very hard to find motivation. Today is windy, the weather is horrible. Not heavy rain, but raining and cold. I finished my gas tank. I managed to have a cup of coffee by camping for free, which was nice. But I'm lacking motivation.
For today, the road that I'm going has a very promising look and looks like I'm zigzagging around the country without a real destination.
While walking on foot, I managed to contemplate all together, glaciers forming lakes on the mountains and then falling down with these huge waterfalls to the fjords.
In front of me I had a full cycle of water. And suddenly I found myself like a fern between rocks. A small, slow movement in a huge, enormous landscape.
This shouldn't be a place where to put a tent. It's full of stones, but I did 42 kilometers today. I can't walk anymore. I'm setting camp there, here, no matter what.