TRAILPOINTS
The trailpoints project is a series of vignettes, sketches, and investigations that visualize the GR 2013 hiking rail as an extended outdoor field museum, a distributed observatory of the para-wild terrains and hybrid geographies that characterize the diverse landscapes of the Marseille metropolitan region.
In a world increasingly shaped by hypermobile transit systems – automotive, air, shipping and rail technologies, trailpoints celebrates the subtle geopoetics of on-foot travel through the fringes, thoroughfares, and transition zones of the contemporary urban transect. Part map, field guide and survey expedition, trailpoints explores the botany, geology, architecture, and infrastructure of working metropolitan landscapes, finding in these everyday environments invitations into the states of heightened observation and aesthetic vitality we normally associate with wild natural landscapes or venerated historic sites.
Conceived and developed by Bryan Connell in collaboration with GR 2013 trail founder Baptiste Lanazsepe, trailpoints was made possible through the generous support of L’Institut Méditerranéen de Recherches Avancées, and Marseille- Provence 2013.