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Join us for a session of journaling on the move!

WALKING NOTEBOOKS is the second in our series of workshops that use walking as a tool for connection between different people and the places through which we pass - we hope that you can come along! For this session, each participant will receive a small notebook to carry with them on our walk. As we set off together around the Sloterplas neighbourhood, we will gradually fill the books with a record of our journey, guided by creative prompts and tasks.

Once we have walked, sketched, marked, read, written and filled the pages of our notebooks, we will return to Buurtwerkplaats Noorderhof for a community dinner cooked by your session hosts, Becca Douglass and Giulia Morlando. This will be an opportunity to slow down, reflect on and digest our walk together, sharing stories and findings with the group and enjoying the company of old and new faces.

All of our workshops are open to anyone and everyone, regardless of experience or background! We want to ensure that all potential participants feel welcome, so if you have any specific access requirements, or would like to ask us a question before confirming your attendance, we would be more than happy to receive an email and discuss how we can accommodate your needs. To keep us running, we ask for a small pay what you can donation at the end of each session - every little helps!

So, fancy putting foot in front of foot with a new community of curious walkers this Wednesday? RSVP at a.guidebook.to@gmail.com and we will see you at the lake!

Love,
Becca and Giulia
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IMPORTANT DETAILS
DATE: Wednesday 29th May
TIME: 4pm - meet at Buurtwerkplaats to begin the walk
7pm - Community Dinner
LOCATION: The session will start and end at Buurtwerkplaats Noorderhof
CONTACT: a.guidebook.to@gmail.com
WHAT TO BRING: Comfortable shoes, waterproof garments (it is Amsterdam after all), water and a small bag to carry essentials for the walk

On Saturday 9th November, we will be developing an ambulatory journey relating to the theme of noticing rhythms. In this walk-shop, we’ll offer prompts and scores throughout that encourage fellow walkers to tune their awareness to the circularity of matter - from the changing of the seasons, to the rhythmic pace of walking, to the organic relationships that flow between bodies as we walk together.

Prepare for all weather! Wear comfortable shoes and bring waterproof clothing. If the weather becomes too difficult for a walking workshop, an alternative exercise will be proposed.

***We recognise the exclusionary implications of walking and choose to co-opt this word to mean being physically present and visible in space, moving through it in an impactful way. As such, we want to accommodate all people. There will be no pressure to walk at a certain speed, and pauses are greatly encouraged. If you have any questions or requirements, you are more than welcome to drop us a message at +31624215459.

"As I write, you insist on playfully flipping each sheet on paper and, if I am not careful, you whisk it from underneath my fingertips. This innocent game is rather typical of you and I - it’s a lovers' game that we often play: I, attempting to make marks, to place something down and to see it there in front of me, visible and named. You, working up your strength to undo the mark, or to make it close to impossible for me to continue my practice of rendering visible."

“So occupied are you with these tokens of shallow idolisation it seems you have failed to comprehend that I do not blow for you alone”, you respond.

"and to feel when you’re not here too, and to miss you."

"the red frisbee would not return alone."

We cordially invite you for a lunch that begins on foot, and ends at the table. Centre-piecing it together is a workshop that explores how walking methodologies allow for the scavenging of objects, stories and experiences that, when combined, can create an active site of reflection.

This session will commence with a walk around the Northern area of Sloterplas; a neighbourhood that fluidly weaves between the natural and urban. Prompts, games and ideas will be fed to the group throughout this walk that encourage the collection of items, the memory of stories and interactions between the group.

As our walk comes to an end, we invite all participants to join us for lunch at Buurtwerkplaats Noorderhof! From here, our intention will be to consolidate our findings - material and immaterial - and work collectively to ‘set the table’ before we eat. In turn, our table becomes a cartography of the walk upon which we embarked together, charting the topography of the land, our somatic experience, and our shared encounters with the human and more-than-human.

Can our walk become a site for creating connections between fellow amblers, memories and the sights we see? Armed with a simple viewfinder, this journey is one of truly testing our vision, tuning into the visual texture of the land through which we pass. Through speaking and sharing memories with those with whom we walk, we will connect these stories to surrounding sights through the frame of the viewfinder. An act of instant composition, this proposition asks us to listen and look with all the care of a photographer, without the permanence of the photo…

Before we embark across this page, there’s a couple of requests that I might ask of you as an active reader. The first is that, at least for now, you suspend your disbelief and envision this moment of reading combinations of characters on a page as instead a moment of walking through a landscape of research. A cartography that maps a processual journey that is still very much ongoing. Although the route ahead has been laid out, it is in no way linear. We’ll wind from the well-trodden path of academic conventions, slipping between shrubbery of poetic prose, informal chatter and dreams for the future. We’ll pass landmarks; monuments of theory and comparative case studies that illustrate this stroll, placing it with the wider contextual landscape of Walking as Artistic Research Practice. Permit yourself to get distracted by your own thoughts, wandering off at times and taking moments of respite…

…maybe this is already one…

…I only ask that you try and return to the track so that we can practise walking together. This is the second of my requests for now - that you refuse the guise of a solitary flaneur. Imagine instead the innumerable bodies that bore the pathway of this research into the soft belly of paper upon which it has been presented to you.

We inhale…

two
three
four

…we exhale…aaaaaaaaaand this sensation of unison connects us in our bi-pedal locomotion.

Practise collective listening to one person as they share a query or concern regarding their own practice. Then, set out together on a silent walk, allowing external stimuli (sounds, sights, smells, touch, objects, animals, bodies, etc.) to provide insights on the question. Allow the collective pathway to be influenced by the direction of the question.
As this silent walk comes to an end, share your findings with the question-asker.

A collaborative walking methodology - during a walk, be vigilant for ‘shiny’ objects that catch your eye, collecting items that in some way hold a story, memory, sensation of the walk. Importantly, these objects must not be larger than your beak (this might be a bag, pocket, purse).
At the end of the walk, compose the objects as a ‘map’ of the pathway you took alongside the objects found by others, observing how each segment important to each individual makes up an important part of the ‘map’.
Take a picture of your magpie map and share with your long-distance collaborator, allowing them to interpret this map for their own walk.

A walk that is intended for long-distance collaborative methodologies. As you walk, capture each direction you take (sharp right, u-turn, straight ahead for a short time, pause for a moment….). These can be sent via text to a collaborator overseas, and used as directions to take for their next walk where they try to the best of their ability to stay true to the pathways laid out for them.

Vast, vacuous, empty table top,
Blank page,
Clean slate.
New side of the leaf.

This landscape reminds you,
That you’ve seen this horizontal plain before - you’ve seen many versions, many maps
Mountains of legumes, and lakes of thick soups, goops, gravies
Ravines of sweets and savouries
Your eyes have wandered atop, between, below it all.
A pilgrimage for the senses.
And here is.
Another one.

Before you settle, before you eat,
Let’s give space and time to this performative aperitif.
Though you may be hungry from passage on feet,
I promise this will be an informative treat.

After all, this table cannot dress itself.
And there’s etiquette to be followed.
So where to begin when we’re centre-piecing it all together?

The first and basic rule to get you started is your utensils, placed in the order of use; from outside in. From outside, what are you bringing in? Pointed and poignant ideas to pierce through conversations? Sticks, slabs, swathes of items gleaned from our walk that each serve as utensils, things of use. Things to pick up and move foods for thoughts around.

A second rule, with only a few expectations, is: forks go to the left of the plate, pinecones on the right,
then take a left and you’ll reach the knife
but if you keep going straight you’ll spot the next turning towards the forest (you really can’t miss it).
And if you're taking the scenic route, then I’d stick to the left-side of the salad bowl
- I’d say it’s worth paying the toll.
(But please don’t forget that the oyster fork is the only fork placed to the right of the setting if it will be used)

Finally, only set the table with utensils you will use. Not serving soup? Then no soup spoon for you.
We’ve taken only what we need to reflect collectively, and though our takings could be abundant, know that there’ll be many more tables for you to lay these upon.

Putting our hands and heads together,
Plotting our crockery on the table,
Making a clatter in the kitchen,
And passing the salt with a side of fable,

We’ll eventually traverse this topographical table top,
Using our knives and forks and fingertips as feet,
As we have just done together.
And shall do again, and again.

I sense that lunch is now ready,
So, who’s laying the table?