David  Blandy

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    Performance, Photography, Video  and  Comics

    In the Barefoot Lone Pilgrim video/performance pieces, Blandy integrates real life and virtual adventures. Donning the orange robes of a Buddhist Shaolin Monk, portable record player in hand, the Lone Pilgrim has been a hermit in an 18th Century park in Surrey, made an Amercan road trip, and searched for the places that had associations with soul songs in New York.

    In Soul of the Lakes, the Lone Pilgrim walked between the only two record shops in the Lake District in the north of England, searching for soul. Intercutting the footage of the real journey with segments from films such as Shogun Assassin and Princess Mononoke and television programmes Kung Fu and Monkey, the film of the performance weaves together an idiosyncratic tale of self-discovery which is all the more believable for its shifts into fantasy and personal reverie.

    Grizedale Residency

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    2004


    The residency at Grizedale Arts led to the development of the character "The Barefoot Lone Pilgrim".
    www.grizedale.org

    Hermit  at  painshill  park

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    2004

    Two week residency as a hermit at Painshill Park, Surrey, 2004 resulting in a comic diary

    Commissioned by Parabola in association with the Museum of Garden History.

    Parabola Trust

    'Five Boroughs of the soul'  

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    2004

    DVD, 12 mins

    Made in Association with Grizedale Arts for "Romantic Detachment" at PS1/MoMa, New York, USA in 2004
    PS1 Press Release Link

    'soul of the lakes' 

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    2005

    DVD, 25 mins
    In Soul of the Lakes, the Lone Pilgrim walked between the only two record shops in the Lake District in the north of England, searching for soul. 


    Grizedale Arts Commision

    'Soul  of  london' 

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    2006

    DVD, 15 mins

    'Origins' 

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    DVD

    'Samurai  Story'  

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    2008

    DVD & Comic
    A series of filmed performances in which the Barefoot Lone Pilgrim attempts to live out aspects of the samurai Hagakure amid an English recreation of a Japanese Tea Garden.

    Commisioned by Parabola for 'Tatton Park Biennial" 2008

    Tatton Park Biennial Artist Page