Walkabout
Masters seminar course on walking as an artistic research practice
KTH School of Architecture, 2022–2023
The seminar course, Walkabout, presented a beginners guide to walking—that slow, yet reliable form of bipedal motion that has served our species well. It may not be the fastest way of getting from A to B, but for those in no rush, it offers an exceptional view of the spaces in-between. The course explored the history, theory, and practice of walking as a method of artistic research, through a series of lectures, talks and seminars. Parallel to this, we undertook several exploratory walks in and around Stockholm—through known and uncharted territories, urban villages and rural hinterlands, manicured gardens and extractive landscapes.
Lectures
The seminar course lectures provided an introduction to the art, practice, and theory of walking, exploring walking as a critical tool of practice and research which can help us see, understand and intervene in the world, as architects and human beings. The lectures explored a variety of historical and contemporary walking practices, from the flaneur wandering the elegant arcades of 19th century Paris, to the later rambling derives of the situationists in the same city, to the radical urban explorations of the Roman group, Stalker. The lectures presented how walking has been used by artist, writers, filmmakers, and architects, as an integral part of their practice.
Walks
As the primary interest of the seminar course was focused on an exploration of the practice of walking—walking formed an integral component of the course. During the term, we embarked upon four different walks, exploring the varied and complex urban territories of Stockholm, and its hinterlands. The walks traced multiple paths across the city, cutting transects through various entangled layers of history, geography, ecology, and urban accumulation. Each walk had a slightly different focus, engaging with different elements of the city, as well as different senses of the body. The idea is that the walks are the seminars—that the act of walking is intertwined with the act of thinking, talking, and reflecting, leading to the production of new forms of knowledge.