Walking against the current: Generating creative responses to place

This article is based on the paper I gave at Place-Based Arts: Brighton Writes on 29 May 2015. Walking allows for an immersive experience of place. As the tradition of the flâneur, the interventions of Situationists and the practice of contemporary Walking Artists demonstrate, walking and creativity share a manifest connection. In this article I present my use of alternative walking practices and discuss how these can be used to generate new creative work. Inspired by psychogeographical methods, I have developed a series of exercises, which I use to create text and which I employ as Learning and Teaching tools with writing students. These include:

• Liberties – using the dérive to break convention and explore place afresh

• Constraints – using randomly generated directions to steer experience and facilitate discoveries

• Subverting mapping and signage – using superimposed mapping and reinterpreting signage in search of synchronicity

• Gathering materials – using alternative walks to observe and record materials including found text, sound and image.

This article draws on my own practice-based research and recent case studies using these methods.