Ten Days Walking and Sleeping on Natural Ground
- Artist: Richard Long CBE
- Date: 1986
- Medium: 3 screenprints on paper on 3 panels
- Dimensions: support: 1533 x 1041 mm
- Museum: Tate Modern
- Collection record: Tate Modern website
Listen to the free audio guide
About this artwork
This is the "Ten Days Walking and Sleeping on Natural Ground" by Richard Long. It comes from a 10‑day meandering walk he did in the Scottish Highlands, a 134‑mile loop on natural ground with almost no footpaths. The work is printed in three panels of brown ink on wove paper. On the left the title is laid out in bold Gill Sans, embodying the idea of the walk. The central panel lists, in a vertical column, the Gaelic and English names of every place he passed in order—it's the objective record from the map he carried. On the right a circle of single words and phrases captures the subjective experience: “deer tracks”, “full moon”, “heather scent”, and other fleeting observations that float in time. Long says the right‑hand circle is a “mind map”, contrasting the chronological list. Together the panels turn the act of walking into a textual landscape, inviting viewers to trace the rhythm of the terrain and the rhythm of thought.
See it in person
Ten Days Walking and Sleeping on Natural Ground is in the collection of Tate Modern on Bankside, London — free to enter. Point your phone at any artwork there and audioguide.london plays a free audio guide in six languages — no app download needed.
