Yu-Wen Wu was shocked to learn how much plane tickets to Taiwan cost when she wanted to visit her sick grandmother in 2010.
She started to brainstorm options. “I decided I could walk to Taipei,” the artist told a crowded room at the Harvard Art Museums on Feb. 21. “I typed it into the Google Maps and asked for walking instructions to Taipei from Boston. What it gave me was a set of instructions, 2,052 instructional steps.”
The product of that thought experiment? A 25-foot handscroll with Wu’s Google Maps directions cut and pasted in order, a route for a trek of 11,749 miles over an estimated 155 days and five hours, including a 52-day (and one hour) kayak voyage across the Pacific Ocean...
