WALKING WOMEN was a series of walks, talks, and screenings and events curated by Clare Qualmann and Amy Sharrocks. The series brought together over fifty women artists to share their artistic walking practices. The series asked:
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?
The event was one step towards building that pathway, by 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.
WALKING WOMEN took place over a week at Somerset House (London) as part of UTOPIA 2016: A Year of Imagination and Possibility, and was also part of a day long event with Forest Fringe at the Edinburgh Arts Festival. In London and Edinburgh artist’s walks and talks ran alongside a Wikipedia edit-a-thon of women walking artists, open mic artists talks, and special editions of LADA’s Study Room and The Walking Library, featuring books by, about and related to walking women.
Extensive audio from the event was recorded and compiled into two podcasts by Amanda Cooper. Programmes for both events can also be found below.
Somerset House (London)- Saturday, July 16, 2016
Somerset House (London)- Sunday July 17, 2016
WALKING WOMEN was curated by Clare Qualmann and Amy Sharrocks in conjunction with the Live Art Development Agency, Somerset House, and Forest Fringe at the Edinburgh Arts Festival and with support from the University of East London.
