Drawing Your Walk: One Foot Before the Other
Malmö, Sweden
June 2022
Walking is immersion into the geography that surrounds us; it happens in real time and in motion. How is it that we choose to navigate space? What perceptual qualities control the decisions made? These are some of the questions participants consider in the process of shaping their walking path moment by moment, step by step.
Using only the script that was provided, the participants set off. The script contains two specific prompts to slow the participants down and heighten their imagination. They were asked to walk for one hour and then return via the same path. Returning on the same path allows for the sudden acknowledgment of something that was not experienced when passed by the first time.
The participants were given two cards: one for drawing trees, and one for drawing their map. They were instructed to walk alone and in silence. Upon return, participants shared their tree drawings and maps. The maps varied as there were decisions to be made once leaving Gustav Adolfs Torg on how to proceed to Pildammsparken. Two questions for conversation: How do we choose to navigate space? What perceptual qualities control our decisions for navigation? Responses were varied and most often directed by the unknown, a sudden encounter of something seen, and moving toward that.
Drawing Your Walk - Urban Social Atlas
THE SCRIPT
Leaving the Orkanen Building, head towards Gustav Adolfs Torg. You have been to the square many times. Find a tree, draw this on your tree card. Mark the time on your map card, and on the reverse side, write your sensory observations at this moment: What do you hear, taste, smell, touch, see?
Now walk on to Pildammsparken and enter the park from the intersection of Pildammsvägen and Carl Gustafs Väg. Explore the pathways; find someplace you do not know in the park, and sit for a while. Find a tree and draw this tree on the reverse side of the tree card. Walk to the Pildammsteatern. Mark the time of day on your map. The stage is empty—imagine the stage full. What do you see? What does the air smell like, taste like? What do you hear, what can you touch? Write your responses on the reverse side of your map.
Exit the park onto John Ericssons Väg, return to Pildammsvägen, and reverse your steps back to the Orkanen Building. Along the way, note on your map what you had not experienced walking to the park.
