Walking in Air is an interdisciplinary project that encompasses walking, writing, thinking, music, performance and discussion. Drawing on Tim Ingold’s suggestion that ‘knowledge is formed along paths of movement in the weather-world’, the project considers walking in air to be a model for speculative thinking, for creative activity and for reconsidering our place within the natural environment. The core walking events can be either collective or individual in nature. These give rise to performance, workshop discussion, texts and audio recordings, much of which will be documented online.
A group of composers, poets and artists from the UK and Europe were invited to undertake some local ‘Walking in Air’ field work.
They were sent 3 poetic quotes we had selected from preliminary research for their potential to inspire or guide their activities. This was followed by an online recollection gathering where stories, recordings, writings and images were shared and discussed.
This local fieldwork was proposed instead of a 4 day residential event at the Centre Des Livres d’Artistes (CDLA, France), postponed to Summer 2022 due to the pandemic. We are planning more iterations of such local activities remotely shared as well as some in person collective ones in the UK and France.
The co-organisers are Will Montgomery (Royal Holloway, University of London) and Emmanuelle Waeckerlé (University for the Creative Arts, Farnham). Participants are drawn from an international pool of composers, artists, and poets.
