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Excuse me? Which way to . . . ?
Navigating Ireland without a map.
Imagine the scene. You’re on a driving holiday when you realise that you are lost. Completely and utterly lost. The usual responses range from checking the map, or pressing wildly at the buttons on the satellite navigation, to driving onwards in the hope that your destination will just appear like magic in front of you. Most of us will do anything to avoid the simplest solution to our dilemma – stopping and asking a local for directions.
This is exactly what Sima Gonsai will be doing for six weeks while cycling Ireland this summer. In fact, Sima will be going one step further and letting the people she encounters on her journey chose the route from one city, town or village to the next, until she has looped the coast of Ireland.
Sima is a digital artist and explorer, who chooses to cycle places she doesn’t know, in order to get to know the people and the environment better. Her artistic practise focuses on new ways of collecting and connecting local histories and stories to create portraitures of people, culture and communities across the globe. She uses digital media to capture and record video journals, interviews and soundscapes, compiled into a film that aims to represent a personal interpretation of the cultural landscape.
For this project, Sima is interested in creating a three-way portrait of Ireland that contrasts and compares memories, stories and experiences of routes, culture and journey in Ireland from migrant Irish communities in Birmingham (her adopted home city), Irish communities and her own perspective as an artist from a family that migrated to the UK from India in the 1970s.
“I am interested in working with Irish communities because they make up the biggest ethnic minority in England. I feel there is a connection between the Irish community from my own ethnic background and migrant history.” Sima Gonsai
Sima’s route will be decided through a combination of information provided by the Irish community in Birmingham, people she meets en route, and suggestions made through her Myspace page. The Myspace page will be an essential part of the project allowing everyone to track Sima’s progress as she updates her adventures as the journey continues. Sima will be collecting thoughts and stories of the people she meets during the journey on postcards which will be shared through a magazine publication compiled at the end of the journey. Using this eclectic combination of paper and digital technology, Sima will engage individuals all over the world with her journey, with the stories of the people she encounters and with the stories of people who are fascinated by her adventure.
