During Fall 2017, I taught WALKING, AN ART HISTORY to undergraduate students at Maine College of Art. Students learned about and researched art works that intersect with walking practices, and created their own works. The course was also offered to a group of community members during 2017. Visiting Artists included Katarina Weslien, Geert Vermeire, and Moira Williams. A catalogue of student writings and projects was produced and available here.
The revelatory power of mobilizing the entire body transforms us as well as the spaces we pass through. Modifying the sense of space crossed, walking has been claimed our first aesthetic act. Walking, an Art History will regard walking as methodology, performance and practice within the history of 20th and early 21st century art. Following lines established by early Surrealist wandering and the dérive of the Situationist International; and connecting to earlier histories of pilgrimage, aboriginal mapping, and the notion of the flâneur; students will investigate a cross-disciplinary arts history that engages questions of mark-making, mapping, historical memory, spatial politics, measurement and myth. In addition to readings, discussions and lectures, the course will include walks led by the instructor, students and visitors.
Students mapping their daily trajectories on the Eastern Prom, Portland ME