The Politics of Walking Art

Elena Lindstrom

What is walking art? ●  Walking as an artistic practice or medium

●  Began in the 1960s

●  Roots in the idea of walking as “an act of resistance”

What is the political

potential of walking art?

Key Scholars

By framing the city as art or performance, these walks temporarily occupy the participant with an amplified attention to, and critical distance from, their everyday environments. They prompt the participant into interpreting the city with a similar level of critical attention as she might have towards theatre or art.

Key Scholars

My work is not intended to be political -- rather, it comes out of the certainty that the political is inevitable.

What is the political

potential of walking art?

Walking art can generate new political

consciousness when an artistic frame is

maintained in a given walking art event that

allows participants in the event to experience

a new way of critically examining their

surroundings.

Political Walking Art = Artistic experience → Critical perspective

What strategies do artists use to achieve this?

What techniques do artists use to create political

walking art?

1) The unconventional guidance, conducted by artists, through familiar spaces to expand participants’ understandings of the places they inhabit;

2) The blending of fiction and reality, or history and the present, to challenge participants’ perceptions of themselves and their surroundings;

3) The use of technology to allow more people to conduct and experience artistic interventions on the everyday.

1) Unconventional Guidance Through Familiar Spaces

Todd Shalom Carmen Papalia

2) Blending Fiction and Reality

One Step At A Time Like This

Janet Cardiff

3) Use of Technology

Carrie Schneider

Thank You! Books and Articles Cited Hancox, Simone. 2012. “Contemporary Walking Practices and the Situationist International: The Politics of Perambulating the Boundaries Between Art and Life.” Contemporary Theatre Review, 22 (2), May 24: 237-250.

Lavery, Carl. 2004. “Walking the Walk, Talking the Talk: Re-imagining the Urban Landscape.” Interview with Graeme Miller, New Theatre Quarterly 21 (2): 161–165.

Miller, Hillary. 2012. “Walking the Elastic City: Total Detroit. An interview with Todd Shalom and Niegel Smith.” Radical History Review 114.

Solnit, Rebecca. 2001. Wanderlust: A History of Walking. London: Penguin.

Web Sources http://hearourhouston.com/pages/about/ http://www.elastic-city.org/about http://blog.art21.org/2014/10/07/you-can-do-it-with-your-eyes-closed/#.WBb0KyMrKqR http://www.chicagotribune.com/ct-ent-0716-en-route-review-20110715-column.html http://www.cardiffmiller.com/artworks/walks/index.html https://newyorktheater.me/2014/10/07/elastic-city-walks-festival-walking-as-performance-art/