Morag Rose, author of the widely acclaimed The Feminist Art of Walking will be joined in conversation with author and poet  Polly Atkin for our first Walking Writers Salon on 2026. 

For over 20 years Morag Rose has been seeking company, undertaking a wide range of explorative wanders on foot through her home city of Manchester and elsewhere, as she writes “Companionship fed my curiosity and made me brave”. We live in an inequitable society, with city spaces and streets where women fear to walk alone.

Morag Rose as an activist artist has been using walking to make creative mischief and reclaim space; to ‘defy the edge of the map and walk together for change’. She was the 2017 Charles Maher Award UK Walking Champion recognised nationally by pedestrian rights charity Living Streets, for creating of The Loiterers Resistance Movement, a Manchester based collective of artists, activists and urban wanderers interested in psychogeography, public space and the hidden stories of the city.

Morag set out in writing her book to create a field guide for women wanting to reclaim their cities – to rightfully claim spatial justice.

Polly Atkin described the book as ‘An essential study of overlooked and under-appreciated aspects of the history of women’s walking as radical resistance and creative practice. Important, thought-provoking and fascinating work’.

Together they discuss Morag’s own practice, why she wrote the book and how important ‘Crip voices’ are in walking art.