Walking alongside elders: A visual essay

This visual essay has links with Miller’s El Duende one-canvas process painting by utilizing a different methodology and form with the use of four short films Into the Earth, Medicine Walk, Fireside Creatures and Whispers. The author screened these films in a range of settings to broaden conversation and dialogue about the Wild Elders therapy group’s working process. From these discussions she created this visual essay as a series of photographs and written text. It leads the viewer through key visual elements mapping the journey of individual and group transformation and growth. The essay concludes that by sharing the source material via animated filmmaking, the author has found new ways of extending the therapeutic reach of environmental arts therapy where visual landscapes of interconnection with Nature inspire creative acts of participation as well as personal and collective change. It offers the reader a process whereby they too can walk alongside elders.