Downward Exploration

‘Downward Exploration’ is an attempt to understand our connection to each other and the world around us, in a deeper and more valuable way.

During my years of travelling, time and again I have found myself drawn to return to very specific areas of the world without really understanding why. As I was increasingly welcomed into the world of explorers and adventurers, I felt that I did not fit in: rather than physically covering ground I preferred staying in one place, getting to know people and building connections, learning dialects and customs.

Building on Chris Lackey’s Vertical Travel, and Lucian Freud’s Downward Travel (see quote below), Downward Exploration is my theory that staying for long enough to learn about small details is important. Encompassing theories of slow travel and micro travel, it proposes that the inflections of speech, ways of seasoning food, body language, subtleties of gender interactions, and even local TV soap operas all have the potential to give us a greater understanding of people, land, and communities. It recognises indigenous science and knowledge as inextricably linked to Land and connection (see Max Liboiron) and suggests that remaining in, or repeatedly visiting one community — when invited — can enable us to dissemble stereotypes and our own prejudices. By listening to local voices and engaging in shared conversation we can reach a more ethical place of representation.

I am still exploring, but in one place: the adventure is in the detail.

“My idea of travel is a downward travel really. Getting to know where you are, better, and exploring feelings that you know more deeply. I always think that thing ‘knowing something by heart’ gives you a depth of possibility which is more potential than seeing new sights, however marvellous and exciting they are.” Lucian Freud