Walking Like a Tortoise

Tamsin Grainger

Walking Like a Tortoise was a slow project of solo and community walking which stretched over a year. It encompassed art-making and exhibitions, group meetings and workshops, and collaborations with individuals and organisations. Rooted in the Granton area of Edinburgh, Scotland, on the furthest, northern reaches of the city, it grew out of a personal interest in ways of better understanding where I live.

The first task I gave myself was to understand where Granton began and ended, and who lived here. I also wanted to know what happened in this area before I arrived, going back through the ages. Coming from England, I might be described as a New Scot. I am a middle-aged woman who doesn’t hail from here originally, though I speak the same language. I am white-skinned in a culturally mixed area, with the privilege attached to that, but, like every other incomer, I did not know the small ways of this community; I did not know its nooks and corners well enough to feel at home here. The Festival of Terminalia, an annual celebration on the 23rd February, focuses on walking, space, place and psychogeography that relates to Terminus, the Roman god of boundaries and landmarks, was upon us, so I decided to start by walking Granton’s boundary to get my bearings.

I started by searching for information and maps of the area for context (the earliest maps dated from 1479). To orientate myself, I checked out local organisations such as the Granton Castle Walled Garden website, the little-known Granton Archive, the Edinburgh School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture who had created their own maps, and the National Library of Scotland’s excellent map resource. A. K. Johnston’s 1899 map showed me Granton in ghostly white because it was outside of Edinburgh proper. In those days, it consisted mostly of the vast grounds of the rich — farmed and/or private land. On Bartholemew’s Plan of Edinburgh and Leith (1940-41), Granton didn’t exist in its own right, only as part of the greater burgh of Crammond, now to the west.

On comparing and contrasting, I found that contemporary maps also disagreed where Granton ended and its neighbours began. There were Parliamentary constituency boundary maps and Parish ones, EH5 (the postcode area), and North West Edinburgh. They all charted distinctions and definitions that can separate or unify people and locations, prompting the question, ‘Do you live in or outside of this place?’

I also started to notice that place names had recently changed, sometimes more than once. When I spoke about this to residents, they expressed their disorientation, especially those who had lived here for 40 years or more. Caroline Park Avenue became Waterfront Broadway and the old Granton Gasworks Station was renovated and given another station’s name, one from down the road. Granton has constantly changed on paper, in shape, and geographical detail, and it still does, with people I have met during the project telling me that they sometimes live in one Ward, sometimes another, depending on the Party which is in power. In the end, I made a series of different boundary routes and tried them out with my feet. On the ground. This allowed me to meet real people who lived here and was even more fascinating.

I stopped passers-by and asked them, pointing towards a house or medical centre we could see, ‘Am I in Granton?’ Everyone was sure if I was or was not; they were all able to say exactly where the dividing line was, and no-one said the same thing as the last or next person! Only Vladimir, who was cleaning his car on Ferry Road Avenue, was in two minds:

Yes, I live in Granton. Since 2015, but, if you ask, ‘Do I live in Pilton’, yes I live in Pilton! It’s not clear where’s Granton, where’s Pilton. Over there [he gestures east towards the Granton Baptist Church] that's Pilton. Here and towards the sea, that’s Granton, but here, it’s mixed. This road's good, but round the corner there’s trouble. I’m from Northern Macedonia.

Then he told me about the history of his country, how people there are unsure about their Albanian neighbours (as other Granton people I had met had said about theirs from Trinity or Muirhouse).

Serbian and Croatian people are really similar, he says, they speak the same language and have the same cultural background as each other. It is not them who make war, it’s made by governments. I like it here. I can just grab the kids and go to the beach three or four times a week. 

This perambulatory research was made slowly and mindfully so as to have time for just such relaxed conversations. I met people who were born in Scotland and whose families have always lived here. There were many who have been rehoused in the area temporarily and want to go home soon, like Nasa, who was leaning over her balcony in Granton Harbour disconsolately.

I'm an immigrant, she said, I don't think I've ever felt settled anywhere. I’ve been here since April. No, this is not home, just a place. I'm hoping to go back soon.

Then there was Sujata, who I came across with her baby on West Shore Road. Originally from Mumbai, she spent four years in Aberdeen before settling in Granton, three years ago. She said she feels like she belongs.

People are friendly and speak to us. There is plenty to do, like the book bugs at Granton library.

After each meeting, I recorded notes from the conversations and asked permission to take photographic portraits. Later, these were displayed in various exhibitions, local and centrally. Some of the subjects came along to visit, such as Rebecca who bought her whole family. She told me they had never been to an art exhibition before. 

Nasa, Rebecca, and Sujata

Nasa told me, “I live in the Murrayfield area, so Granton is not home. It is where I work and the job here in the pharmacy is challenging because of the drug problems.”

On the stretches between conurbations and building sites, I met the other-than-human inhabitants of Granton, sitting with them while I drank my flasks of tea. Plants were straining through fences and entwined around gate posts. Ringed plovers were racing along the shoreline as if they were stitching up the liminal space between land and sea, and the ants were very busy going about their business across paths. I made work in response, placing Granton maps on top of earth, beach, and paving slabs, and photographing them as the grass grew through, or the slugs, snails and sea took no notice of the boundary. They had their own parameters and desire lines of desire, were oblivious to man-made limitations, and they, too, are in danger of losing their territory or homes due to building developments which are devastating green spaces, and to coastal erosion. 

I started to make my own charts, annotating old Ordnance Survey maps or A-Z’s I found in charity shops, and then drawing new ones. I used them for walks and invited others to join me, and annotate the maps I provided. I asked, “How would you change the area? What would you add or take away? What names would you use for this street or part?” I started to paint a map of the Granton I was getting to know, adding illustrations of the red admiral butterfly, the oyster catcher, and heron who I met on my walks. I used an old-fashioned design style, influenced by the ancient maps I’d been learning from, and left the edges of it unclear to acknowledge the debate around exactly where the place begins and ends. 

As I got to know the local archives, one notable absence was the perspective of women of colour. To celebrate these members of the community, a high-profile evening of public events took place in one of the newly renovated heritage buildings. All the speakers and contributors were key women from the Afro-Carribbean and Asian communities in Granton and wider Edinburgh. The hidden history of the area, its colonial past, and the repercussions of the abolition of the slave trade were the topics of the main presentation, and the following discussions built on exemplary past arts projects. Collaborating with leading organisations and making new connections deepened participants knowledge and understanding of local heritage, and increased individual skill-sharing, skill-building, and inter-community exchange. Everyone had the opportunity to articulate and share their real needs and priorities including the often-overlooked members of our community. It was noted by Granton Waterfront, one of the partners, that this evening provided positive social benefits and enriched the lives of Granton residents, as well as attracting people into the neighbourhood from the wider city and beyond. It was hoped that this would be the pilot for a more impactful and on-going programme, and an application has been made to the Lottery Heritage Fund for future development.

After studying demographic data, a local walking tour was translated into Arabic and Polish, making an inclusive statement to the wider community and attracting those who do not usually attend. Women for whom these languages were their mother tongue, co-led these walks with me, as we aimed to make our local history more accessible and embrace the stories of as many folk as possible. Members of the public who walked with us explained how they had been paying attention to the plant, insect and bird species they live alongside, observing, documenting, putting out food and sharing information about them in impressive acts of hospitality and care.

The two main Walking Like a Tortoise exhibitions (one at a local community centre and the other in the city’s Central Library) were curated to be as interactive as possible. The Green Map of Edinburgh encouraged children from the Travelling Community who were camped outside the local centre to locate themselves on it, prompting dialogue and exchange around family identity and nomadism. Bricks were borrowed from what is locally referred to as the Brick Beach, to make plinths for displays (there are two urban beaches, but the eastern one is on the border with Wardie, and though long-term residents of Granton know it as theirs, it has recently been renamed and appropriated by their posher neighbours for wild swimming). The bricks are remnants of the industrial era when coal was mined on the other side of the city and transported here by railways built by the Duke of Buccleuch who owned much of the area and exported it through Granton Port. Pots of Esparto grass, one of the area’s other historic imports, for the paper-making industry, stood on the brick plinths. Other objects temporarily removed from the landscape on my walks were put in a Cabinet of Curiosity and used to prompt storytelling activities with children.

Further multi-cultural and inclusive activities took place, such as art workshops for young people, carers, and children with their parents. These used imagery from my boundary walks to stimulate discussion about our surroundings and heritage. Workshop and exhibition attendants were given time to be cartographers in their own right when I put out a reference selection and invited them to draw and collage maps of where they lived. 

‘I Belong to Granton’ postcard

I Belong to Granton postcards were made and given out to exhibition visitors and workshop participants. On the back is the charming story told to me by a late neighbour which contributed to the project’s name. In the early 20th century, tortoises were discovered to have stowed away on the boats bringing the Esparto grass from Southern Spain and North Africa and they were given as pets to the local children who gathered on the harbour to watch the unloading.

My textile and sound art highlighted more controversial topics (planning permission, land use, tree cutting to make way for housing developments) as well as drawing parallels with body geography, and anatomical pathways. The project happened over a year-long period, allowing for seasonal contrasts and a deeper integration of people encountered and wider issues arising. A short film shows one of the boundary routes, highlighting the variety of landscape. It moves from housing estate to parkland, to coastline and through wasteland, follows chalk pavement drawings and nips through short-cuts where previously common ground was barred from public access.

Slowly walking like a tortoise around the different boundaries of Granton and stopping at a variety of points along the invisible lines that I traced on maps, resulted in a new appreciation and connection with the place I call home. I realised that this was my way of finding a sense of belonging. Discovering the palimpsest of heritage, natural and built landscapes, art, and a vast range of peoples living side-by-side, was inspiring. I have since continued to build a walking community, host private walks (Walking the City at Night, and Wasteland Walk with Harbour Connections), and walks with local organisations (Drylaw Walking Group and CUMET [Cultural History at the Edge – Edinburgh, Paris and Madrid]). When these are being planned and executed, the relationships which were built up during Walking Like a Tortoise continue to develop: hospitality from WASPS, the artist studios who run Granton Station where the Women’s event took place, for example, and the local foundry, who both allowed me to bring a large group to visit when I was leading them at a later date.

The project existed in a post-industrial landscape which is being heavily redeveloped with new housing. The challenge of such extensive growth for a predominantly low-waged community, without increased education / medical / retail or social facilities, is enormous. In addition, Granton faces, as we all do, ecological and climate-related changes, not least because of its coastal location. Third Sector organisations are working hard to promote and support integration and cross-cultural participation, despite an era of severely depleted funding for on-going services and upgrades to built infrastructure. Yet, we were able to work together as part of Walking Like a Tortoise, and to provide walking art and mapping events for the community. This was made possible by my background experience, a shared determination to create a stimulating, local environment, by many of us working for free, supporting each other, and making it our business to know where we might be able to find small pockets of funding.

The power of this walking art work comes from the connections it builds: the on-going, local, human relationships; the historical references and information-sharing that roots us in the past; group movement through the landscape that provides collective memories; touring identifiable landmarks and telling incomers stories about them, creating a sense of ownership; listening to each other’s opinions which promotes trust and a willingness to participate. Connection comes from manifesting an openness to other species, appreciating and supporting them together; using themes that embrace all aspects of life: politics (housing needs, activism), social care, education, and the arts; devising activities to prompt and acknowledge shared emotions which are part of people’s everyday lives and plans for the future: joy, fear, anger, anxiety, hope (psychogeography in action); networking at community (grassroots), council and national level; working inclusively to ensure involvement (language, cost, familiarity of location, friendliness); adapting to changing needs; repeating cross-generational activities; and regularly translating ideas and transforming community concerns into art. It is connections which thread us together, stop us feeling alone, and build community.

Walking Like a Tortoise links.

Blog: https://walkingwithoutadonkey.com/2023/02/23/the-granton-boundary/

Walk through the exhibition https://vimeo.com/870601486?share=copy#t=0

Biography

Tamsin comes from a background which saw country boundary lines used to divide and conquer, and acknowledges that they still are employed politically to label and name people unnecessarily, and to usurp others’ lands. That is part of her history as a white, middle-class person of British birth, though not something she subscribes to. She first came over the border to Scotland without even knowing that it was a different country. There, she has made her home for the past 30+ years, and works as a walking artist. She walks the outskirts of places and transgresses borders, trespasses into spaces which were, and arguably still are, common lands, but have now been fenced off and sequestered by private companies and individuals. She documents and makes artistic responses about these walks. Starting her working life as Dance Artist in Residence for Edinburgh, she is a trained Shiatsu (Taoist) practitioner, has a sound walk on Granton harbour which featured in the exhibitions and was shortlisted for a Sound Walk September award in 2023, and was recently awarded the international Marsato Award (2024) for the Walking Like a Tortoise project.

Email: tamsinlgrainger@gmail.com  

Website: tamsingrainger.com, walkingwithoutadonkey.com

Instagram: @tamsinshiatsu, @100daywalkingproject

BlueSky: @walknodonkey.bsky.social