The Covid 19 crisis of 2020-21 has taken many names, including “The Great Pause.” It has forced us to halt our usual habit patterns and critically reflect on how we conduct our daily lives. New forms of movement and sociability have emerged in the wake of this global pandemic. Why and how do people develop walking practices during periods of physical and psychological constraint? What has this experience revealed to us, and how have our attitudes towards walking shifted as a result, perhaps even in ways that we can crry with us in a post-Covid reality?
This seminar centers on the academic research and artistic practices that investigate the act of walking as shaped by pandemic conditions.
Speakers: Dee Heddon, Clare Qualmann, Morag Rose, Maggie O’Neill and Harry Wilson, moderated by Lydia Matthews, Professor of Visual Culture, Parsons School of Design / The New School, New York (US).
This seminar begins with a one hour long and two part online conversation focused on the findings of a team of researchers whose investigations consider how the pandemic has impacted the walking habits of artists and everyday residents in the UK. It will be followed, after a break, with in person streamed conversation with researchers and artists in Prespa.
