Foot Traffic
Livingstone Neighborhoods | Livingstone Streets
2019 | Foot Traffic was conceived during an artist’s residency at Wayi Wayi Art Studio and Gallery in Livingstone, Zambia, in June 2018. While navigating the streets of Livingstone, I became fascinated with the abundance of footprints I saw. Footprints are a temporary, constantly shifting record of the intersection of human lives.
The footprints in the sand of Livingstone allowed me to walk alongside people I may never meet. I followed some of the prints, wondering where the people were headed when their paths diverged from mine. In my imagination, I heard traces of conversations and saw groups of people standing in a small area, perhaps waiting for a taxi. I saw people disappear where sand met pavement. I watched the paths of people of all ages intersect with each other, with bicycles, cars, and animals.
Much of my work explores the history and character of places and people. Foot Traffic explores real and imagined communities and both solitary and collective journeys taken by the people who live there. The footprints serve as a metaphor for the journey each of takes during our time on this planet.
As they changed day by day, the footprints in Livingstone came to represent all of us who share time and space on planet earth. The more I interacted daily with Livingstone’s people, both real and imagined, and left my own footprints in the sand, I found that this beautiful, unfamiliar land had begun to feel like home.
