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After 3 Trains, 3 Aircraft, 9 hours waiting in Airports, and a car ride with a lovely couple I met on the plane from Copenhagen to Reykjavík, my wife and I have arrived at the SÍM Residency House in Reykjavík. During the 44 hours we were travelling, somewhere between watching Family Guy repeats, and The Ninja Turtles Movie, I began thinking about my process, and how I want explore the idea of Walkabout.

The concept of Walkabout is to leave your family, and normal life behind to wander and find your self. In the time before Europeans in Australia this was as simple as just picking a direction, and starting to walk, but in this digital age of Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram it is much easier to keep in touch with family all over the world, and much harder to unplug. I feel I need to limit my social media contact during my residency to these blog posts, and maybe a few working photos on Facebook. Those who know me know this is a big deal, as I am constantly on Facebook on my phone. I encourage my family, friends, and fans to follow my work, but I won’t actively reply.

Another part of this for me is to actually spend some time with my wife, we both work shift work, and are often on opposite shifts. While Walkabout means leaving family behind, in this case, what is normal is for us to pass each other, quite literally, in the night. We live in the same house, work at the same place, and rarely see each other. Walkabout is about leaving ones normal life behind to find ones self, in our case this means actually being in the same place, at the same time. This doesn’t mean that we will be joined at the hip, I will still be wandering on my own quite regularly, and I am sure she will explore on her own too. But it does mean that, at the end of day, I will actually get to see my wife.

Today I will venture out from the SÍM Residency house for the first time, and start finding my way in Reykjavík. I will try to update the blog at least once a week, but hopefully more often.

Bless Bless (Goodbye in Icelandic)