Walking as Artistic Practice
Walking as Artistic Practice
By Ellen Mueller's Picks
These are books I've referenced as I develop a course called "Walking as Artistic Practice."
Books I wasn't able to include here, but I would also recommend:
- Keep Walking Intently: The Ambulatory Art of the Surrealists, the Situationist International, and Fluxus by Lori Waxman, (Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2017)
- Ways to Wander by Clare Qualmann (Editor), Claire Hind (Editor) - a book of scores (directions for walking)
- Lines Lost by Stuart McAdam
- Prompts for Participatory Walks edited by Todd Shalom - this is really great for those interested in group walks (has a link to the free PDF download on this page)
- Walk Ways by Tom Marioni (2002)
- The Art of Walking: A Field Guide. by David Evans. ISBN: 978-1907317873
- The Vintage Book of Walking, edited by Duncan Minshull. Random House UK, 2000.
- On Procession edited by Rebecca Uchill
- Plantewalker: 22 Years of Walking, 17 Years of Silence by John Francis
- Through the Labyrinth by Herman Kern. ISBN: 978-3791321448
- The Situationists and the City: A Reader. edited by Tom McDonough. ISBN: 9781844673643
- Walking Detroit by JeeYeun Lee. ISBN: 9780578717845
- Richard Long: A Line Made by Walking by Dieter Roelstraete (2010). ISBN: 978-1846380587
- London Walking: a Handbook for Survival by Simon Pope (2001). ISBN: 978-1841660561
- Iain Sinclair has several books about walking, such as London Orbital in which he walks the M25 highway that encircles London
- Pacing by Francis Alÿs (2014). ISBN: 978-84-941462-6-8
- Going Out - Wlaking, Listening, Soundmaking. by Elena Biserna
- Walking from Scores. by Elena Biserna
- Magical Paths: Labyrinths & Mazes in the 21st Century by Jeff Saward (2006)
Articles:
- Sandals, Leah. "Step by Step: Artists Walk to Resist Colonization, Ableism and More" in canadianart. June 22, 2017
- Chan, Michelle. "Walk With Me," Frieze. September 7, 2017.
- Morrell, Amish (editor). C Magazine. Spring 2014 edition.
- “Theory of the Dérive,” first published in Internationale Situationniste #2 (Paris, December 1958): Debord-Theory_Of_The_Derive
- Gleber, Anke. "Female Flanerie and the Symphony of the City." Women in the metropolis : gender and modernity in Weimar culture. Ed. Katharina von Ankum. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997.
- Hammergren, Lena. "The Re-turn of the flâneuse." Corporealities. Ed. S. L. Foster. New York and London: Routledge, 1996: 53-67.
- Jabr, Ferris. "Why Walking Helps us Think " The New Yorker (2014)
- How walking helps...
Novels/Other writings about walking that are popular:
- Open City by Teju Cole.
- The Salt Path: A Memoir by Raynor Winn
- The Walk by Robert Walser (tedious, but I can see how some might enjoy the stream of consciousness approach)
- Walk: Slow Down, Wake Up & Connect at 1-3 Miles Per Hour by Jonathon Stalls
- On Trails: An Exploration by Robert Moor
- The Rings of Saturn by W.G. Sebald (haven't read it)
Image Above: from summer 2019 Walking as Artistic Practice course at Minneapolis College of Art and Design
Walking as Artistic Practice
Ellen Mueller
$113.85This is my book on the topic. Softcover comes out Apr 6, 2024. Learn more about how I wrote the book at https://teaching.ellenmueller.com/walking/
Wanderlust: Actions, Traces, Journeys 1967-2017
Rachel Adams
$29.95 $27.85Fantastic catalog of work on this topic.
Walkscapes: walking as an aesthetic practice
Francesco Careri
$21.95Great history - things in here not covered in other books; has a strong architecture bent to it
A Field Guide to Ilanding: Scores for Researching Urban Ecologies
$16.50
This collection of scores (directions for walks) is really strong. It includes wide-ranging approaches you can try yourself right away.
Walking Art Practice: Reflections on Socially Engaged Paths
Ernesto Pujol
$25.00Small book with short easily digestible chapters/short reflections on topics intersecting with walking as artistic practice.
Walking Bodies: Papers, Provocations, Actions from Walking's New Movements, the Conference
$36.00
A curated collection of papers, provocations and actions from the ‘Walking’s New Movements’ conference held at the University of Plymouth in November 2019.
The Society of the Spectacle (Revised)
Guy Debord
$24.95 $23.20Also the author of "Theory of the Derive"
Flâneuse: Women Walk the City in Paris, New York, Tokyo, Venice, and London
Lauren Elkin
$20.00 $18.60The introduction gives a nice history of women walking - a counter point to the flâneur
Wanderers: A History of Women Walking
Kerri Andrews
$14.00 $13.02Great compilation that should be assigned reading anytime you pick up one of the male dominated surveys of walker-writers.
Mazes and Labyrinths: Their History and Development (Revised)
W. H. Matthews
$15.95 $14.83Walking has intersected with Labyrinths since their inception.
The Idea of the Labyrinth from Classical Antiquity Through the Middle Ages
Penelope Reed Doob
$23.94"She then describes two common models of the labyrinth and explores their formal implications: the unicursal model, with no false turnings, found almost universally in the visual arts; and the multicursal model, with blind alleys and dead ends, characteristic of literary texts." - Amazon summary
A Walking Life: Reclaiming Our Health and Our Freedom One Step at a Time
Antonia Malchik
$15.99 $14.87
52 Ways to Walk: The Surprising Science of Walking for Wellness and Joy, One Week at a Time
Annabel Abbs-Streets
$26.00 $24.18
