jeremy knowles

8am Walks is a series built upon one simple instruction: Leave the house at 8am with a camera and walk.

8am Walks began for me not as a series, actually, but as a creative tool, when I was studying at Camberwell College of Arts in London, to solve my utter boredom. At a time when I was suffering from waves of creative blocks, and ultimately lacking inspiration for new projects, I began using my time in the morning, before needing to be at university for lectures or workshops, to walk along different routes from my house in New Cross to Camberwell (around 2.2 miles if walking along the direct, main road).

Slowly, what began to emerge from these morning walks was a reliable tool for me to engage, very simply, in image-making each day. The more I walked and photographed, the more routes I found to get into college and the more of my neighbourhood I discovered. I realised how much of the city was unknown to me… despite having lived in South-East London for two years. From this routine, I developed a number of projects during this time, one of which became my degree project in which I investigated billboards and the role they play in the city.

When I later moved to Berlin in 2016, this same method of exploring my surroundings that I had developed in London (on foot and through the lens), seemed the most natural and instinctive way to understand the city I was living in. Since then, although 8am Walks has certainly expanded and found different focusses at times, at the core of this series is still a way for me to meditate on the city each day by engaging in image-making.

8am Walks as a series will likely be ‘ongoing’ for some time. The walks I take in the morning are still a practiced and structured part of my daily schedule in Berlin, even five years into living in this city, and the walks still fulfill an important role in my mental health by acting as a kind of meditation. And so, 8am Walks will continue to grow in the background of my practice, I suspect. At times, the series takes more of a central role in my work. I find myself more engaged in the process when, for example, the series has a special focus or context – depending on where I’m living, how I’m feeling or the time of year. It is often the case that, on one of my morning walks, I have an idea, make a discovery, solve a problem or realise a connection. This series essentially informs existing projects and also acts as a stimulant for new work.