Join us to celebrate the launch of Walking, the latest addition to the Documents of Contemporary Art series, published by the Whitechapel Gallery and MIT Press.

Edited by Tom Jeffreys, the book argues that walking is a vital way to assert one’s presence in public space, not only in the street or the countryside but also in art discourse. As a relational practice touching upon access, public space, land ownership and use, walking is always political.

The day consists of three different events, each approaching walking with different perspectives and priorities. This is a collaboration between the Write of Spring programme from Research Culture & Researcher Development and Thinking Culture.

All three events are free. Booking for each is separate.

1.00–2.00pm: Order at the Border | Iman Tajik with Lucas Priest

Initially developed by artist Iman Tajik for Art Walk Porty 2023, Order at the Border is an experimental walking art exercise involving mapping, drawing and movement. Participants are split into two groups, with each group adopting a different position in relation to power and control of bodily movements.

Iman Tajik is an Iranian-Scottish multidisciplinary artist and photographer based in Glasgow, Scotland. His work is anchored in a strong social interest and demonstrates an effort to make work that is a critical tool connected to international movements for social change.

Lucas Priest is an intermedia artist working and living in Leith, North Edinburgh. He facilitates the School of Pedestrian Culture, a mock-institution for the ‘play testing’ of psychogeographic games aimed at disorienting how we encounter space and place. With a particular focus on exploring, encountering and drifting through sites of change, community resilience or capitalist expansion.

3.30-5.00pm: Writing in Movement workshop | Camilla Nelson

This workshop playfully enquires into how the writing bodymind affects and is affected by movement and environment. Camilla will share a range of writing techniques, perceptual exercises and mobile scores that influenced the creation of her long form, walking/writing work, EPIC (Guillemot, 2021). This workshop develops from creative processes used in Reading Movement (2015-2017), influenced by Camilla’s somatic training with The World is Sound (TWIS) and OBRA. It is open to all writing abilities.

Camilla Nelson’s work explores the materiality of language – particularly in relation to the other-than-human – in page-based poetry, soundwork, installation and performance.

Please get in touch if you have any specific mobility or sensory needs to help with the planning of the workshop.

5.30-7.00pm: Walking Book Launch Panel Discussion with Q&A
Dee Heddon; Tom Jeffreys (chair); Carl Lavery; Dominic Paterson; Clare Qualmann; Iman Tajik

Edinburgh-based writer Tom Jeffreys chairs a panel discussion about walking in contemporary art practice, introducing the new anthology, Walking: Documents of Contemporary Art, and outlining the book’s central argument that walking is an inherently political act. The discussion will also place the book in a deep context of practice and criticism, suggesting new avenues and directions for practitioners to pursue in the field of walking.

The panel includes Carl Lavery, Professor of Theatre and Performance at University of Glasgow, whose essay Walking in Ruination is included in the anthology; artist Iman Tajik, whose walking art project Bordered Miles was commissioned by Glasgow International and restaged by the Hunterian in 2023; Professor Dee Heddon, who holds the James Arnott Chair in Drama at the University of Glasgow and is the author of many outputs exploring creative walking, ranging from essays to creative research; and artist and writer Clare Qualmann, who is also Associate Professor at the University of East London.

This event, which launches Walking to a Scottish audience, will bring together creative practioners working across Scotland and beyond who have an interest in walking as a research methodology to discuss how walking can form the foundation of creative work, and research practice. We’ll discuss key issues in this field of practice, share insights from practical experience, and invite a Q&A from the audience.