DAZZLED ✦ CARTOGRAPHY OF SOFT STEPS

In the current political climate, it is perhaps unsurprising that even the solace of nature carries traces of patriarchal control and colonial need to conquer. In much the same way as the looksmaxxing trend, the language surrounding outdoor activities is increasingly framed by conquest and efficiency, distancing us from both our bodies and the environments they inhabit. Maya Fluss, an artist whose roots lie in the Italian Alps and Peruvian Andes, challenges these inherited ideas in her recent project, Cartography of Soft Steps. Motivated by a desire to reframe dominant patriarchal narratives and fascinated by how functional objects can transform into carriers of relational, ecological, and embodied knowledge, she drew from observation and personal experience to shape her new pieces.

Raised amidst the beauty of the Italian Alps, Fluss observed the influx of tourists and the romanticisation of the scenery gradually transforming the mountains into what she described as ‘an aesthetic product  extracted, exhausted, and consumed.’ When she later visited the Peruvian Andes, she found herself confronted with the histories of exploitation that have shaped the landscape – from white tourism to imperial and colonial structures – and she began to question her own relationship to her ancestral land. In a painful realisation, she recognised that her connection was not to the environment itself, but to ‘the idea of the mountains rather than the actual landscape.’

Driven by this revelation, Fluss began questioning which forms of engagement with the landscape could deepen the connection between human and land, rather than simply fetishising its romanticised image. Fascinated by disused tools and their transformative journey from practical to obsolete, she turned her attention to hiking gear. Traditionally designed for performance and endurance, helping users take on trails and conquer summits, these objects, for Fluss, uncover a different potential: as instruments of movement and navigation, they bridge the body she inhabits with the body of the land, underlining the poetic relationship and undisputed entanglement between the two. The wearable sculptures born out of this exploration can be carried on or by the body: ‘Activated through choreographed gestures, they shift the romanticised narrative of hiking as heroic and efficient toward walking as an act of attunement – rooted in gesture, sensitivity, and intimate encounters with alpine landscapes.’

Unyielding brass is a recurring focus in Fluss’ practice, its resistance perhaps part of its appeal. ‘Working with heat and fire, hammering both against and with the metal’s resistance, I feel a powerful sense of agency. Taming big sheets of metal into forms that feel intimate becomes a negotiation between force and care, making the process deeply nurturing and responsive.’ She finds a similar tension in the objects’ temporal functionality. In tuning into both dynamics, Fluss shapes the artefacts into vessels of new meaning, assigning them a renewed narrative.

She finds a similar tension in the objects’ temporal functionality. In tuning into both dynamics, Fluss shapes the artefacts into vessels of new meaning, assigning them a renewed narrative, hoping to inspire viewers to cultivate a non-exploitative relationship with the environment. Throughout her project, the artist observed the troubling overlap between the regulation of human bodies by capitalist and patriarchal systems of control and the fetishisation and exploitation of the lands we inhabit. Guided by the understanding that ‘protecting the lands we care for is inseparable from protecting the bodies we care for,’ she was propelled to undertake a course in sex education. Having drawn from the body and worked with it in her art, the step feels both deeply relevant and exciting for the future development of her practice.