WALKING
WOMEN
A
programme of events that places women at the centre of discussions and debates
about walking and art. Part of UTOPIA 2016: A Year of Imagination and
Possibility – Four Seasons of events, exhibitions and new commissions
celebrating the idea of utopia to mark the 500th anniversary of Thomas More’s
influential text.
The
invisibility of women in what appears as a canon of walking is conspicuous;
where they are included, it is often as an ‘exception’ to an unstated norm,
represented by a single chapter in a book or even a footnote. Heddon
and Turner (2012)
How
do we re-write a canon? How do we re-balance the perception of art, artists, and
the use of walking as a creative practice? Can we not only imagine a future in
which gender bias and skewed vision is destroyed, but actively build the pathway
there?
These
events are a step on that path. Bringing together artists from across
disciplines - theatre makers, writers, sculptors, film makers, poets, live
artists and visual artists with academics, curators and cultural critics to
discuss, present, create, record, broadcast and make public the work of WALKING
WOMEN.
Artist's
walks and talks will run alongside a Wikipedia edit-a-thon of women walking
artists, an open mic Pecha-Kucha, and special editions of LADA's Study Room and
The Walking Library, featuring books by, about and related to walking women.
Monday
11 – Sunday 17 July
Go
for a walk with extracts from Clare Qualmann and Claire Hind’s book Ways
to Wander, spend an hour, or a day, travelling on Amy Sharrocks’ Bus
Pass, give yourself up to Jennie Savage’s audio walk The
Guide to Getting Lost.
Wednesday
13th July
Join
writer, artist and breast cancer survivor, Claire Collison for An
intimate tour of breasts,exploring their mythologies and commodification
throughout history to the present day.
Saturday
16 – Sunday 17 July
The
Walking Reading Group on Participation (Lydia Ashman, Ania Bas and Simone
Mair) lead a walk discussing ideas of Utopia, artistic director Anna Birch
introduces her women’s suffrage inspired film March
, made with Glasgow Women’s Library and Royal Conservatoire of Scotland,
Lois Keidan director of the Live Art Development Agency discusses the Afghani
Artist Kubra Khademi’s radical walking protest performance art, writer and
journalist Anna Minton and geographer Jo
Norcup respond to artists talks by Clare Qualmann, Amy Sharrocks, and Jennie
Savage, artist-researcher Dee
Heddon takes her Walking
Library for Women Walking on a suffragette inspired route,
artist-researcher Alison Lloyd presents her work recovering histories of women
land artists of the 1960s and 70s, performance maker Louise Ann Wilson discusses
her site-specific walks Warnscale
and Fissure,
academics Dee Heddon and Cathy Turner discuss their research on Women
Walking and how we might further open up questions on what it means to
walk, who walks and where. Plus: film screenings, pecha-kucha format artists’
talks, a Wikipedia edit-a-thon, and LADA’s library of WALKING WOMEN books.
Booking
information will be announced shortly.
There
are also opportunities for artists to get involved and show their work – see here
Look
out for a LADA Study Room Guide on WALKING WOMEN being created by Amy
Sharrocks and Clare Qualmann.
WALKING
WOMEN is curated by Amy Sharrocks and Clare Qualmann in collaboration with Dee
Heddon.
It
is presented in partnership with Somerset House, The Live Art Development
Agency, The Walking Artists Network, The University of East London, Deveron
Arts, Forest Fringe and Geography Workshop. A series of radio programmes tying
in to the events will be broadcast on Resonance FM.
Full
schedule with timings here: http://www.walkingartistsnetwork.org/walking-women-at-somerset-house/
