The University of Amsterdam Walking as a Research Practice Research Group (WARP), in collaboration with the Centre of Urban Studies (CUS), Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis (ASCA), Platform for Research through the Arts and Sciences (ARIAS) and Netherlands Institute for Cultural Analysis (NICA), is delighted to announce its first conference, to be held in Amsterdam 29-30 September 2022. The conference is organised by T. A. Cardoso, F. Ranalli, F. Smits & Prof. A. Twemlow with the support of the UvA Centre of Urban Studies. 

About the conference

With this conference and the ongoing activities of the Research Group, we hope to stimulate a rich transdisciplinary dialogue about how, why, when, and with what results, walking practices are being explored and engaged with in the social sciences, humanities, and the arts. In particular, the conference is centred on the intersection between artistic or design research and an expanded conception of urban research. The conference seeks to highlight how the ways in which artists and designers use walking in their research practices, and a renewed attention to the role of the body and the senses, might invigorate a critical rethinking of traditional methods and perspectives in the field, and thereby help in fostering a more inclusive and transdisciplinary discourse on place-making and becoming in the context of a city.

The conference will also appeal to those working in adjacent disciplines such as geography, artistic practice, artistic research, art history, journalism, environmental humanities, performance, media studies, digital humanities, and more.  

The conference will take place at the Allard Pierson Museum on September 29 and 30. If you would like to attend please register by sending an email with the subject ‘registration’ to warp-cus@uva.nl.

As a warm welcoming, the WARP team would like to invite the participants and attendees to the VOX-POP event ‘Walking back to Amsterdam’ on September 28 starting at 16:00. Please find all information here.

Research Master Students and PhD Candidates who would like to follow the conference for credit can earn 2 ECTS offered by NICA (Netherlands Institute for Cultural Analysis), for full attendance and active participation in the conference and delivery of a written report (500 - 800 words in length not including references) about the conference focusing on one of the sessions. Please register by sending an email with the subject ‘registration ECTS’ to warp-cus@uva.nl. A reading list and more information will be provided after registration.

Key dates

• Walking back to Amsterdam (VOX-POP): 28 September 2022
• Walking-with Amsterdam (Allard Pierson Museum): 29 and 30 September 2022

Guest speakers

Prof. Stephanie Springgay (McMaster University) will be giving a keynote lecture on September 29.

Stephanie Springgay is Director of the School of the Arts (SOTA), at McMaster University, Canada. She is a leading scholar of research-creation with a focus on walking, affect, queer theory, and contemporary art as pedagogy. Her SSHRC-funded research-creation projects include WalkingLab (www.walkinglab.org) and The Pedagogical Impulse (www.thepedagogicalimpulse.com). She has published widely on contemporary art, queer-feminist anti-racist pedagogies, and social practice arts.

Goda Verikaitė and Aušra Česnauskytė (Neo-futuristic Walks) will be leading a walking seminar on September 30.

The project Neo-futuristic Walks (neofuturisticwalks.com), initiated by the spatial designers Aušra Česnauskytė and Goda Verikaitė at the end of 2020, is a series of ‘walkable’ city inspections that shape a community of neo-futurists collectively re-imagining new ways of urban coexistence. By walking, neo-futurists explore the primal bodily experience’s role in unfolding new relationships in and with urban environments. They employ context-sensitive speculative scenarios to live in constant preparations for the inescapable urban futures. Neo-futurists see the cities as huge lively ecosystems where every individual’s well-being is interdependent.