In Solidarity

Emma Elliott and Susie Olczak

2024

Video (4 minutes 7 seconds )

Shown at Tremenheere Sculpture Gardens with the Royal Society of Sculptors.

In Solidarity is a video work created collaboratively between Emma Elliott and Susie Olczak that combines storytelling from their time in Armila, Panama; where Elliott and Olczak spent time together researching and experiencing living in the Darien Gap, with footage shot in Cornwall, 2023.

In Solidarity considers the significance of walking throughout human existence and its connection to survival and place. People walk to save their lives, for spiritual enlightenment, for healing and for leisure. Pertinent to their discussions and core theme of this work is their time spent in Armila, in the Guna Yala region which holds the world's most dangerous migration routes consisting of miles of dense roadless rainforest, mountains, and swamps. The migrant crisis in Armila became an unexpected and significant dynamic of their residency with hundreds of migrants passing through the town everyday, their presence quickly became a large part of the story of Armila and their time there.

Shot in Cornwall where the artists walked parts of the St Michael’s Way; a coast to coast pilgrimage while reminiscing about their time in the Darien Gap. Footage also shot on the North Coast and at Tremenheere Sculpture Gardens.

This work was made in direct conversation with their past work Where The Jungle Meets the Sea… The World is Split in Two, 2022 and is a response to the relationship between landscape, and the deliberate act of walking, to human connection and shared experiences.