Lucius Burckhardt and the Future of Perception
Open call deadline: 8 August 2025: https://ilea.art/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Call-for-Participation-DE.pdf (in German)
Symposium + Walkshops
September 5–7, 2025
Berghotel Alpenblick, Tenna, Safiental (CH) + hybrid
A transdisciplinary symposium on walking as an artistic practice, spatial experience, and epistemic method in the spirit of Lucius Burckhardt.
2025 marks the 100th anniversary of Lucius Burckhardt, the founder of promenadology (also known as strollology, science of walking). Yet this occasion is much more than a historical commemoration. In a present marked by ecological crisis, urbanization pressure, and digital spatial reconfiguration, his thinking gains new urgency. Burckhardt’s approach to take walking seriously as an epistemological practice can be read today as an invitation to critical world perception. WALKING becomes a method to question those designs that appear “natural,” and a practice through which space, bodies, and power relations become visible.
For Burckhardt, the walk was not an end in itself, but a means to challenge perspectives. According to his thesis, we do not see the landscape—we see our expectations. In a world shaped by fast planning processes, algorithmic navigation, and global acceleration, promenadology offers a decelerating counter-movement: a thinking in motion, a moment of pause through walking.
Organizational Details
The conference will take place from Friday, September 5, 2025, 4 p.m. to Sunday, September 7, 2025, 4 p.m. in Tenna in Safiental (GR) and partly hybrid.
A second part is planned for spring 2026 in an urban setting.
The event is organized by the ILEA Institute for Land and Environmental Art.
Curation/Moderation: Violeta Burckhardt, Johannes M. Hedinger, Raimund Rodewald.
Supported by Lucius und Annemarie Burckhardt Stiftung.
Selected contributions will be included in the publication WALKING (ILEA Press, Vexer Verlag, St. Gallen/Berlin), scheduled for release in 2026.
Participation
Participation in talks and walkshops is free but limited to 30 people. Some talks will be offered in a hybrid format, but not the walkshops.
Participants are responsible for their own meals and accommodation.
The conference Hotel Alpenblick (www.alpenblick.ch) offers affordable menus and rooms.
To attend in person, please complete the attached registration form (HERE) and submit it to info@ilea.art by August 15, 2025. First come, first served.
If you would like to contribute a paper or workshop, please apply HERE by August 8, 2025.
ILEA – Institute for Land and Environmental Art, www.ilea.art
studio erde, https://www.studio-erde.com/
Lucius und Annemarie Burckhardt Stiftung, www.lucius-burckhardt.org
APA style reference
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