Beyond The Pedestrian: Walking in Research, Theory, Practice and Performance.

26th July 2018 Dept of Geography and Planning, The University of Liverpool

I was delighted to have my abstract accepted for this conference  organised by Dr Morag Rose, who leads the wonderful loiterers resistance movement in Manchester.
http://thelrm.org/index

Three of us presented work under the title , Walking Environments and Performance: 

Jess Allen, ArtistDrop in the ocean: on walking with water as eco-activist performance 

David Shannon and Sarah Truman, Manchester Metropolitan UniversityQueer the landscape: Walking-songing-researching from Melrose to Lindisfarne

Elspeth (Billie) Penfold, ArtistThread and word

 Here links to their work:


Jess Allen

https://www.escholar.manchester.ac.uk/api/datastream?publicationPid=uk-ac-man-scw:223621&datastreamId=FULL-TEXT.PDF

David Shannon
https://www.davidbenshannon.co.uk

 I gave an introduction to walking and Thread and Word and will be adding the copy of my talk to my website in due course.

With thanks to all who listened and knotted at the conference. Please see photo on the right. Great knots!

A Vara walking in Margate

 Your knots will be turned into a Vara recording the experience of meeting and talking to you at 'Beyond The Pedestrian'.

I also received another walking Library badge  (see above) from Professor Dee Heddon,  from her Walking Library for a Wild City with Alec Finlay. I have a knotted rope which will be added to the Vara archive together with the badge!

for more about The Walking Library for a Wild City , http://wildcityglasgow.blogspot.com

Keynote Speaker at Beyond the Pedestrianr: Professor Dee Heddon, University of Glasgow

Beyond The Pedestrian, with thanks to Morag Rose for organising an inspirational conference

A photo posted on twitter before the conference by Dee Heddon 

A one-day interdisciplinary event focused on walking research, practice and culture. Our definition of walking is welcoming to all kinds of bodies and includes orthotics, sticks, wheels and other assistive technologies. Subjects covered may include, but are not limited to:

Walking interviews and other pedestrian research tools
Creative walking, walking art and pedestrian performance
Past, present and future psychogeographies
Walking to critically engage with and understand our environment
Walking as a political, activist or community building tool
Ethical conflicts, barriers, issues and debates around walking research
Access, participation and the privilege of walking as choice
Research into, and around, pedestrian policy, planning and promotion
Walking across and between academic disciplines
Walking for leisure, education, health, tourism or exploration

I am now preparing for and looking forward to : 

 The upcoming 2018 Fourth World Congress of Psychogeography in Huddersfield in September, when I will be collaborating with Sonia Overall , Threading and Treading the Labyrinth http://4wcop.org/#eventsreading

MEMORIES.... THERE'S ALWAYS TOMORROW

A lovely film by the talented film maker Anna Bowman. With thanks to Peter Herbert and Jill Rock for curating the exhibition at The Arts Project, St Pancras Hospital.

The piece I exhibited is 'Unravelling', it is about by mother who died in December. She was diagnosed with dementia in 20013. The St Pancras Hospital was one of the first NHS hospitals to have a Memory Clinic and it seemed a very fitting tribute both to the hospital and my mum. It was wonderful to have my piece exhibited there with such a talented group of artists.

Without detracting from the wonderful film and exhibitors, the film is 28 minutes long and if you are short of time but would like to check out my piece, it comes in at 11.56 minutes.

As stated by Jill in the film the exhibition is meant to be positive and upliftting. I have spent over 42 years living in the UK, far away from my family and mother who lived in Uruguay. Although daunting it was quite a journey when she decided to come and live in the UK after my father died in 2009.  I am so glad we had that time together and although it was not easy we also managed to have quite a few laughs! This textile piece celebrates this time and I hope you enjoy it.

For more about the exhibition centre at St Pancras Hospital, and their present exhibition 'The Art of Caring :https://www.candi.nhs.uk/news/art-caring-exhibition