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Dear Walking Artists Loitering With Intent: The Art and Politics of Walking opens at People's History Museum in Manchester on July 23rd. The almost complete events programme has been published and I hope it is of interest. Several WAN members are participating in the show, and it would be wonderful to see you on the streets with us. Please forgive the length of this email but I wanted to share everything with you, especially as tickets for some events are limited Details of the exhibition can be found at http://www.phm.org.uk/whatson/loitering-with-intent/ The Cake Map of Manchester Saturday 23rd July 12 noon until the cake runs out The Cake Map of Manchester invites you to take a bite out of the city, with each piece representing a place. We want you to choose one to eat. Is it somewhere special to you, are you consumed with love and what to keep it safe? Or is it somewhere you dislike and you want to get rid of it? Be a Godzilla and destroy your least favourite building! Perhaps you just want to taste the canal without the risk of falling in. Please help us find the edible heart of our world. No booking required, but please be aware that when all the cake has been eaten the map will be gone Loitering With Intent Launch Party Saturday 23rd July at The Britons Protection 7pm (music from 8) Please come and celebrate the opening of Loitering Intent with us in one of Manchester’s finest pubs. There will be live music from The New Seegers and friends playing Songs that changed the world. From the Beat Generation to the Woodstock Nation. “Glorious harmonies and tight, fresh arrangements”- Morning Star. Free and no need to book Manchester Area Psychogeographic: Levitation, Explosions, Exposures Sunday 24rd July 2-4pm Bob Dickinson, co-founder of Manchester Area Psychogeographic (MAP) talks about the history of Manchester’s first known psychogeographic group. For the first time in 20 years he will show slides taken during MAP’s derives and interventions. These include images taken during their examination of the site of the IRA bomb in Manchester soon after the explosion. More information and free tickets available here: http://www.phm.org.uk/whatson/manchester-area-psychogeographic/ Drinking in The City Tuesday 26th July 2016 2-4pm This tour explores the impact alcohol has had on shaping the city. It will tell tales of lost pubs, prohibition, famous raconteurs, class struggles, romantic encounters and comedy encounters facilitated by booze. It will also uncover the dark side of the morning after and fears of public health. Manchester has a long and complicated relationship with the bottle and because this is an LRM tour expect our history to be permeable, participatory and opinionated. Free tickets here http://www.phm.org.uk/whatson/drinking-in-the-city/ Manchester's LGBT Centre: we were born in the 80s With Emily Crompton Saturday 6th August 2-4pm This walking tour will tell the story of how Manchester became the first place to build an entirely publicly funded, purpose designed centre for the gay community, just as Thatcher’s government were enacting Section 28. It follows the money, as it were, from the Town Hall to Canal Street and then to Sidney Street. The story is one of unlikely success in the face of the public funding landscape, some hostile political foes and an infamous 147 signature petition. Free tickets here http://www.phm.org.uk/whatson/manchesters-lgbt-centre-we-were-born-in-the-80s/ Spatial Machines: walking with GPS (with Chris Wood) Saturday 13th August 12-4pm More and more we are coming to rely on technology to know where we are and what is around us. Creating this kind of locative information relies on a massive infrastructure of satellites and ground based reference stations. How do these infrastructures see the world? You will walk around the city seeing how architecture and the built environment can disrupt GPS position and then reflect on the infrastructure’s potential for creating hybrid spaces combining terrestrial and extra-terrestrial lines of sight. More details and free tickets here: http://www.phm.org.uk/whatson/spatial-machines/ What is Psychogeography? Talk and gallery tour Sunday 14th August 2-4pm This talk and gallery tour will explore what psychogeography is and how wandering can be an artistic or political act. It maps walks from Paris 1968 to contemporary Manchester with deviations to discuss poets, punks, mystics and everyone who fought for our right to roam. Suitable for all ages but space is limited. Free tickets are available here: http://www.phm.org.uk/whatson/what-is-psychogeography/ Manchester Modernist Heroines walk Thursday 18th August 2-4pm This walk celebrates the achievements of 10 inspirational women who shaped the twentieth century. From artists to aviatrixes, campaigners and designers, Their achievements, and complexities, are largely overlooked by the history books. In the absence of official monuments we will follow the traces they left behind and uncover their legacies. A collaboration between The LRM, Manchester Modernist Society and Shrieking Violet More details and booking: http://www.phm.org.uk/whatson/manchester-modernist-heroines-walk/ Walking, Touching, Lying A Walk With Mythogeographer Phil Smith Saturday 27th August 2-4pm Mythogeographer Phil Smith will lead an exploration of the wounds, scars, infections, clues and symbols in the texture of the city’s surfaces. The walk will explore different viewpoint levels, how the surface can ripple and trip, and in what particular gutters to look for dust from Mars. More details and booking: http://www.phm.org.uk/whatson/walking-touching-lying-2/ First Sunday Derives with The LRM Sunday 7th August, 4th September and 2nd October 2pm On the First Sunday of every month The LRM go for a wander. Please join us for a game that will change how you experience the city. We will go for a walk guided by instructions designed to exercise your imagination and uncover secrets on the street. No need to book, just turn up. The walk start from inside The Peoples History Museum We Shall Overcome on the Streets Part One with Quiet Loner Sunday 11th September 2-4pm A musical tour with Quiet Loner exploring radical history, the blurring of public private space, community action and much more. This walk was first performed as part of We Shall Overcome weekend 2015. WSO is pro community and anti-austerity, a raised fist and a helping hand. Together we will be wandering the boundary between public and private space, exploring radical histories, DIY culture, and public/private space. Book tickets here: Free but please bring a donation for a local organisation (tinned or non perishable food, socks or sanitary items) – more details of what is needed will be sent to participants nearer the time. http://wsostreets1.eventbrite.co.uk Wandering Around The Toilet Wednesday 15th September (walk 2-4pm, installation all day) This tour will explore the history of spending a penny and how lack of public loos impacts on who can use the city. There will be tales of public health, gender inequality, the blurring of public and private space and the fight for fair access to the toilet. All day in the gallery you can meet members of the Around The Toilet Team, and see an installation designed by Architecture students at the University of Sheffield. The construction is based on the materials and design of public toilets to challenge assumptions and provoke a rethinking of issues of gender, ‘ability’, access, surveillance and the meanings of ‘public’ itself. Drop into the gallery all day and book free tickets for the walk here: http://toiletwalk.eventbrite.co.uk Shadow Play: Liberation and Exhilaration in the Mancunian Night with Nick Dunn Saturday 17th September 7.30-9.30pm Where now for the secret, the contemplative, the quiet and subterranean in our cities? The question may no longer be what spaces we wish to engage with but when are they? The nocturnal city is a place and time within which escape from the measures and restrictions of the daytime is possible. More specifically, it is a state of being. More information and free tickets here: http://shadowplaymcr.eventbrite.co.uk Democracy Outside! With Claire Bonetree Saturday 24th September 2pm Come and play politics in a piece of street theatre that invites you to have your say on some big issues. Whose streets? Our streets! Join us as we take over a corner of Manchester and play politics. Democracy Outside is an inclusive, interactive public performance about democracy: part street theatre & part political action, it blurs the boundaries between ‘art’ and ‘activism’. It will move you (if you're doing it right) – and it’s fun! Come prepared to play. No need to book, more information the location will be revealed the week before Shared Energies: From Syracuse to Here with Moira Williams 25th September 2-4pm A walk linking us with Moira Williams, an artist based in Syracuse New York. We will follow maps of each others cities to find shared histories, synchronicities and friendships. Grab a balloon, grab a map and come along on a walk where we will explore the somewhat shared and connected industrial Revolution histories of land, waterways and activists between Syracuse, NY, USA and Manchester, England, UK. More details and free tickets here: http://syracuse-mcr.eventbrite.co.uk Walking on Film: Meet the filmmakers 28th September 3-5pm This symposium brings together three film makers who have contributed to Loitering With Intent. They will each introduce a screening of their work and there will then be a discussion with questions and comments from the audience very much appreciated. More details of the film programme, and details of how to get your free tickets, will be posted soon Saturday 1st October 10am-1pm The Right to Roam in The City / An Urban Safari Join veteran footpath campaigners Don Lee (The Open Spaces Society) and Gloria Gaffney (Pedestrians Association) and learn about the fight for the right to roam in the city. An informal conversation will introduce their campaigning work, and why they feel it is important. Then we will go on an urban safari through alleyways, ginnels and backwaters of the city. Several of these have been subject to controversial closure bids by landlords and / or Manchester City Council. More information and free tickets available here: http://right2roam.eventbrite.co.uk Get Lost in Liminal Space Wednesday 5th October 2-4pm A performative walk exploring thresholds, boundaries and in-between places across the city. Psychogeographers are often drawn to liminal spaces, but what actually does that mean and what do they look like? These are places of transgression, transformation, magick and entrapment. Our guide will make sure you are able to safely return from a trip that will include minor epiphanies, death, sex, music, special brew and complicating binaries. Expect a guided walk that is equal measures of performance, rant, tribute and tour. NB suitable for adults only More information and free tickets here: http://liminalmcr.eventbrite.co.uk We Shall Overcome on the Streets Part Two Saturday 8th October noon-2pm This all new tour has been created for We Shall Overcome 2016 and is a collaboration between The LRM and Quiet Loner. Together we will be wandering the boundary between public and private space, exploring radical histories, DIY culture, and public/private space. We will uncover the power structures and architecture of fear that works to keep us off the streets and share stories of resistance, solidarity and creative mischief. Expect a few ghost stories, dark humour and passionate ranting too. This is a rallying cry to know your streets and be proud of your community. Book free tickets here (please bring a donation for a local foodbank, details tbc) http://wsostreets2016.eventbrite.co.uk Invisible Cities – Literary Psychogeographies at Play with Alan Smith Sunday 9th October 1-4pm A brief exploration of literary psychogeography followed by a derive, during which, participants will apply techniques described in order to disrupt and reinvent the city of their imagination. The event will begin with a short description and history of literary psychogeography, taking in figures such as Iain Sinclair, Peter Ackroyd, Thomas DeQuincey, Charles Baudelaire, Walter Benjamin, William Blake, Arthur Machen, Edgar Allen Poe, Italo Calvino, Alan Moore and JG Ballard. We will then head off to explore the transformative power of the imagination to make the mundane magical. More information and free tickets here: http://invisiblemcr.eventbrite.co.uk After Hours: Archive and Artist Books Show and Tell plus Curators Talk about The Art and Politics of Walking Thursday 13th October 3pm – 7pm (talk at 6pm) Peek behind the scenes of our exhibition Loitering With Intent. Walking is more than pedestrian. It can be a political and or artistic act. Travel through time and space to encounter heroes, villains, revolutionaries, artists, poets, philosophers, situationists, monsters and mystics. We will also discuss how the city has been shaped by transport and why Mancunians have fought for the right to wander our cities. Before the talk there is a chance to explore the exhibition with one of the curators and a unique opportunity to get close to zines, maps and artists books which add to the story. My very best wishes Morag Rose The LRM (Loiterers Resistance Movement) FRIENDLY REMINDER: if you click REPLY to this email, you will be sending a message to over 300 subscribers. Please do so only if you wish to respond to everyone. To join, leave or suspend list postings, visit http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/wan