THE GR 2013 – A HIKING TRAIL IN THE METROPOLITAIN AREA OF MARSEILLE

The GR 2013 is a 365 km long trail that leads through the contemporary landscape of the Provence in the metropolitain area of Marseille (South of France). It has the label european long-distance hiking-trail (''sentier de Grande Randonnée de Pays'', GrdP). However, the artists who conceived it modified some of its well-established principles. Differently to the classical long-distance trails it doesn't lead only through mountains and unspoiled nature, but passes the whole range of contemporary provençal landscape: coastal areas and industrial districts, fallows and fields, shopping centres and forests, barren highlands and urban jungles, motorway interchanges and city centres, suburbs and deserted railway lines....

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Route
The trail has the form of a lying 8. It starts at the TGV-station of Aix-en-Provence and runs around two spaces without construction in the outskirts of Marseille. In the North-West around the inner sea Etang de Berre (connected to the Mediterranean sea) and in the East around the mountain ranges Etoile and Garlaban. A third circle forms a shorter, more urban route that also crosses the city-center of Marseille. The initiator of the path also likes to call it a metropolitain hiking-trail: it passes through 38 municipalities, three shopping centres, roman forts, fields, residential areas, fallows, but also protected Natura 2000 areas and the two mountain ranges. Walking the entire hiking trail will take you 15 – 20 days.

 

Concept

The starting point for the invention of the GR 2013 was the will to renew the relationship between city and nature. The initiator Baptiste Lanaspeze conceived the trail in cooperation with 11 so-called walking-artists and the excursionnistes marseillais, the local hiking club. The inventors consider the trail as a work of art: drawing a path is comparable to painting on a canvas. By fixing the route, the artists also fixed certain viewpoints on the landscape of the region Bouches-du-Rhône. "To have someone draw a 365 km long trail is as if one created 100 paintings" says its initiator Baptiste Lanaspeze. Just like a piece of art changes our perception of the world, our perception of the surroundings will change by this new use of the region and what at first view seemed to be familiar to us. Baptiste Lanaspeze draws a comparison between the GR 2013 and an open-air exhibition. An exhibition that allows us to explore and experience the contemporary landscape of this region by foot.

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Realisation of the project

Initially, the GR 2013 was a project of the European Capital of Culture Marseille-Provence 2013. It is the result of the cooperation of a variety of protagonists and institutions. Within only three years the walking artists (cercle des marcheurs), the hiking commitee of the Conseil Général des Bouches-du-Rhône and the french hiking federation FFRandonnée carried out this project that was coordinated by the publishing house Éditions Wildproject.

Dimensions

 

It was by financial and organisational means of the European Capital of Culture 2013 that the GR 2013 could be realized. However, the underlying ideas existed long before in publications about Land Art, the flaneurs (strolling) and urban journeys. Moreover, the culture of urban hiking already had a long tradition in Marseille.

 

The GR 2013 is not only a piece of art that is experiencable with the whole body, but (with explanations in the guide book) it also helps us to understand why people live in certain places and why the have created certain things. Last but not least it is an invitation to discover distances that we normally only cover by car: "If you leave your car to walk this trail, you will see things in a different light. After this experience you will never look at this region in the same way" (Baptiste Lanaspeze).

 

 

Into the surroundings

The GR 2013 is a hiking trail that does not only lead through unspoiled nature, but also and particularly through suburbs and fringe areas. The journey is the reward. Apart from that, the aim is to redefine the hiking-practice and to renew our attitude towards a scenery that we often ignore because we regard is as trivial, ordinary and unspectacular. The spatial proximity of man-made constructions and nature produces unique, often disturbing and yet stunning perspectives between urbanity and wilderness. With the help of the GR 2013 we discern the city as living space of the human beings – and consequently as a part of nature. Considering this, the inventors of the trail call upon us to deal with toady's urbaness and to explore the areas of our cities that we usually avoid.

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The GR 2013, a metropolitain hiking-trail

A metropolitain trail is designated for the local population, but also for travellers. The aim is to encourage them to...

• discover a region with a different approach,

• to link places that seem to be far or isolated from each other,

• to re-experience the walk as an exceptional way of locomotion.

Metropolitain trails are to be categorized between ecology and city planning, contemporary art and literature but they also refers to fields of daily life like tourism, public transport, local affairs and biodiversity. Metropolitain trails transform the city: by connecting diverse spheres, they reveal the city in a different light. Out of the periphery we analyse the centre. By this means the exploration of the edges of the city can contribute to the creation of tomorrow's city.

 

Click here to go to the official page of the metropolitain trails.

 

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Parts of the text are taken from Baptiste Lanaspeze's project description of the GR 2013 (original in French).