Stephanie Springgay directs the research-creation collaboratory WalkingLab (WalkingLab.org). WalkingLab studies and advances the theory and practice of critical walking methodologies through interdisciplinary arts practices and public walking events. The various projects and events activated at WalkingLab draw on feminist-queer, anti-racist, anti-ableist, and anti-colonial thought and practice to question who gets to walk where, how we walk, under whose terms, and what kind of publics we can make. Past projects have included: large public facing queer walking tours on park trails, in urban spaces, in former mining sites, and in rematriated wetlands, taking up issues related to place-making, public pedagogies, extractivism, counter-mapping, Indigenous sovereignty, and climate change. The presentation will take up theories of collective walking as intimacy while sharing some examples.
Stephanie Springgay is Director of the School of the Arts and Professor at McMaster University. She is a leading scholar of research-creation with a focus on walking, affect, queer theory, and contemporary art as pedagogy. She directs the SSHRC-funded research-creation project The Pedagogical Impulse which explores the intersections between contemporary art and pedagogy and directs WalkingLab – an international network of artists and scholars committed to critical approaches to walking methods. She has published widely on contemporary art, curriculum studies, and qualitative research methodologies. www.stephaniespringgay.com
Field School: Gathering Alongside (Friday October 18, 10.00-10.30)