“You don't need to crunch around in Gore-Tex to be subversive, if you’re a woman," writes Lauren Elkin in her book Flâneuse. "Just walk out your front door."

Earlier this month, London announced a £15.6 million fund to make streets, parks and other public places safer for women and girls to walk in - a reminder that public space is not experienced equally by everyone.

Last night I joined a group of women led by Clare Qualmann, as part of Eléonore Ozanne's Women Walking, the City, at Night. Around the world, in different cities, women gathered to walk together under the Harvest Moon. We walked through Dalston towards Hackney Wick. It's the second time I've joined Ozanne's collective performance, and each time I'm reminded that it's a radical act.

For me, for many of the women with me, walking after dark combines feelings of freedom, joy, rebellion and also fear. We have all, at one time or another, felt unsafe walking after dark for no other reason than that we are women, as Natalia Viana pointed out in a newsletter earlier this year. We have all been warned, repeatedly, by parents, partners, authorities that it isn't safe. And yet we do, because we have to, or because we want to - because why shouldn't we?

The solo male flaneur moves unseen, free to watch. The flaneuse is watched instead, visible, unless she disguises herself as a man. It's why women walking together in public, with the full moon as ally, feels so powerful.

Who creates public space, and how walking in public space changes the nature of that space, is the subject of Wednesday's WALC Café with Collettivo Amigdala from Modena, Italy. These artists ask how artistic action can create a public space, where people can gather, meet and negotiate what happens there. Elisabetta Consonni and Cardellini Gonzalez (Igor Cardellini and Tomas Gonzalez) will join Amigdala's Federica Rocchi to talk about the tensions that come with taking a position in public.

This follows Tuesday's online Café Vamos Caminando, with singer and performer Claudia Urrutia, who will discuss walking as a practice of grounding and connecting to her new home. In the second half of the evening, Fred Adam, Gustavo Alvarez, Geert Vermeire and Ridha Dhib - who is currently walking across Italy towards Greece - will join the conversation with Sylvie Marchand on how walking separated by distance can also create connection.

See you there.

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