The commitment of the pilgrim

• 1. Become a Pilgrim

  Participant is not a tourist. Participant is a Pilgrim.
  Tourist and Pilgrim have the same behaviour: to escape the environment the everyday life. But Pilgrim's approach is beyond the hedonistic attitude of the tourist. This one only seeks a punctuation mark in his/her biography, while PIlgrim makes a ritual by her/his journey.
  And the other hand, Pilgrim comes from the Latin Peregrinus that means stranger, foreigner, wanderer. traveller and newcomer. As a person from abroad, participant will explore Gotland along the traces left by the past, to understand our present and visualize the future.

• 2. Reach a purpose.

  APOSTLAHäSTAR På GOTLAND was born from an individual experience to become collective project by conceiving a multi-identity group of people walking on a specific island.
  In this community, there will not be an authoritarian entity. Rules will be negotiated by pragmatic agreements. We will formulate a harmonized structure in order to overcoming contingencies will happen along the way.
  There is just one purpose: to reach together every step on the way.

• 3. Create a room for understanding.

  This commun agreement will realize the possibility of peaceful and harmonious coexistence. Diverse group of people can live together, without distinction of any kind of race, colour, sex, belief or nationality.
  Pilgrim will use the path as a room for respecting the difference between people. A room for accepting the diversity with enriches us. A room for placing discussions about the current political and environmental concerns. A room where peace becomes militant.
  Now, when walls are built to separate people, APOSTLAHäSTAR På GOTLAND goes through a route to join people.

• 4. Produce positive energy.

  The Pilgrim attitude involves self-discipline from everyone. Participants could be required to walk an average of 20 km per day Also, there will be days that they sleep on beds and another ones on the floor of churches. It is necessary to reach a positive and constructive attitude among Pilgrims to implement the project.
  Smiling, humour and positive energy are tools for cohesion and going-on.
  With physical exertion and daily contact, the social masks fall down for showing us as we are. In this stage, Pilgrim has to respect others, letting individual spaces and understanding diversity of personalities.

• 5. Explore the social capital.

  In order to break the alienation between visitors and locals made by the tourist industry, APOSTLAHäSTAR På GOTLAND will produce relational situations where sustainable is created, shared and maintained collectively.
  The method will be twofold. One is concerning to pilgrims who will live off the social capital that Gotland is offering to them. Pilgrims will be fostered to buy all the food to local producers as farmers or fishermen. This means that Pilgrim's menu will be similar many days and they might carry food in the backpacks.
  Second, Pilgrims will take an active part in events to promote the engagement of local communities on the route: cooking dinners, participatory performances and sharing encounters.

• 6. Walk as a poetic gesture.

  APOSTLAHäSTAR På GOTLAND starts and ends on foot. The most slowly way for traveling becomes a reaction against the speed of everyday life and an aesthetic practice for exploring the surrounding world. Moving by food is a way of tributing the land that Pilgrim passes through: natural environment, rural communities, sustainable agriculture, ancestral traces and relational encounters. To show respect for the territory of others by being awareness of the current environmental concerns. In case of Gotland, the most disturbing problem faced by the inhabitants is the lack of freshwater.

• 7. Fight against fear.

  Nowadays, society is based on a climate of permanent insecurity and inconsistent surrounding. Media promotes the fear rather than understanding among countries. Through an intercultural approach, APOSTLAHäSTAR På GOTLAND encourages Pilgrims from different backgrounds to show that there is not fear when people work together for building a community. Marching together will write a statement as a peaceful action at turbulent times in which we live.

• 8. Register the journey.

  As 21st century pilgrim, the journey will be documented on the media. APOSTLAHäSTAR På GOTLAND encourages to the Pilgrims to write about their experience, to draw about their insights, to capture the experiences with their cameras, to register the activities, to record sounds, to perform in the happenings. Collecting all this walking-production for publishing a book as a memory of an unique event.

• 9. Accept the deal

  The decision to become a Pilgrim for APOSTLAHäSTAR På GOTLAND implies unconditional acceptance and support of the above points: to participate actively in group activities. To show respect for the arrangements, specialty regarding accommodation and food concerns. To accept individual differences to demonstrate that there is not fear to the OTHER. To move together in the same direction as a demonstration that we are not alone. To explore a specific island as a reflection of human behaviour in the shifting world in which we live. Walking so that steps leave a footprint that shall resonate for long time