Where did this come from ?
EXCURSIONNISTS OF YESTERDAY …
The hike is a massive sociological fact (8 million registered practitioners in France) and a historically recent activity. At the end of the 19th century, with the advent of rail transport
which makes it possible to easily reach the sites of walk, the excursionism develops everywhere in France – and in a spectacular way in Marseilles. The famous Société des Excursionnistes Marseillais, created in 1897 by the publisher Paul Ruat, boasts, at the beginning of the 20th century, of 11,000 members. Passionate about maps, photography, techniques and nature, these proto-ecologists are shaping a new sensibility and opening new spaces
to the social practice of hiking.
TO THE ARTISTS WALKERS TODAY
Walking artists are artists who place the question of territory and the act of walking at the center of their practice. This international niche of contemporary art, very established in the United Kingdom, Germany and Italy, is also present in France and singularly in Marseille, where a dozen of them recently formed part of the collective Le Cercle des walkers.
Among the influences of the walking artists, there are major figures of Land Art (Robert Smithson, Long Richard, Hamish Fulton), literary influences such as the psychogeography of Guy Debord (1955) or American photographers who participated in the exhibition New Topographics in 1975.
The sensitive exploration of the territory, the relationship between public space and private space, between city and nature and a desire to get out of the white cube and the museum are all issues that are important to walking artists.
GR2013 : the beggining
The GR2013 bears in its name its date of birth and its cultural specificity.
A 365-kilometer metropolitan trail imagined and marked on the occasion of Marseille Provence, European Capital of Culture 2013, it is also a sustainable project that invites you to observe, explore, learn and tell in order to better inhabit a territory. It is a public space that traces a physical and narrative continuity in the metropolitan area.
It allows an unprecedented circulation of inhabitants and visitors through 38 municipalities, over an area of 3000 km2.
Initiated with artists-walkers and hikers, the GR2013 also today brings together many collectives of architects and artists-builders who develop a concrete and poetic relationship to the territory.
By proposing to survey urban or peri-urban areas, it crosses contrasting landscapes (motorways and rivers, pavilions and hills, industrial, commercial, natural zones, etc.) and invites the inhabitants, the expert or the visitor to build a more intimate relationship. with the places.
It is the fruit of a cooperation between many actors: communities, municipalities, the French Federation of hiking (departmental committee of the Bouches du Rhône and regional committee), Marseille Excursionists and hiking clubs, associations, artists, actors tourist and cultural …
The GR2013 is the result of a collaboration between the steering committee, the 38 municipalities crossed, local authorities, Marseille Excursionists and hiking clubs, associations, artists, local tourist and cultural actors …
The steering committee: e Conseil Départemental des Bouches-du-Rhône, La Fédération Française de Randonnée Pédestre (et ses Comités Départemental et Régional), My Provence.
Walking artists: Nicolas Memain, Hendrik Sturm, Christine Breton, Geoffroy Mathieu, Christophe Galatry, Mathias Poisson.
Collectives of artists, inhabitants and architects builders : Le Cabanon vertical, Le collectif ETC, Yes We Camp, Collectif SAFI, OPP-GR®2013, Par Ce Passage Infranchi, Le Bureau de l’Envers, La Folie Kilomètre, Les Pas Perdus, Hôtel du Nord.