'Walking Together' Workshop

Four-day workshop for Ontario College of Art & Design University,  Florence Campus,

1-4 March 2011

Our practice is often conducted outside of the studio environment and our workshop took the form of a walk between the Tuscan villages of Fiesole and Settignano. During the three hours in the hills we explored various modes of walking from the formal to the everyday, from the silent to talking, and from lone- to group-walking. We extended these themes into discussions about landscape representation and art school pedagogy before sharing a meal and heading back to the studios. Here, we all participated in a performance, describing our engagement with the walk, the landscape and with each other - in an event similar to Mountains & Lacunae in form.

At OCAD U's Florence studios we presented the first in a series of seminars and workshops which explore the theory and practice of the social modalities of walking in contemporary art. Over the period of four days we presented our analysis of the history of 'walking together' in the form of a short lecture, artist's talk, workshop, participatory performance and supported by studio visits/tutorials. 

In our lecture and artist's talk we introduced our thesis, drawing on examples from recent art history, our own work and touching upon theories of participatory practice, inter/transdisciplinary collaboration and landscape.