Geert Vermeire talking walking

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As the five day 2017 Made of Walking event in La Romieu, south west France drew to a close, Andrew Stuck had an opportunity to talk to Geert Vermeire, it’s organiser and a walking poet and philosopher, in his on right.  We sat in an ‘echo-ey’ dining hall, in front of a small audience of Made of Walking participants, a couple of whom contribute to the interview by asking questions.  Throughout Made of Walking, Andrew had been trying to pin Geert down for an interview, but he was never still for long enough, so on the off, Andrew wanted to explore his role and how he came to make Made of Walking happen. 26′ 12″ 12.3MB

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Duncan Speakman talking walking

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Duncan Speakman, modestly describes himself as an ‘outsider artist’ and a ‘jack of all trades’ with no formal arts training and experience gained as a composer, sound engineer, documentary post production, digital artist and now writer.  His ‘walking pieces’ have delighted Talking Walking producer, Andrew Stuck, who thought he might describe them as immersive taking you away from your surroundings, Duncan likes to think that his work is making you more present in the city, using sounds and music in ways to shape our experience.  Andrew was lucky to catch him between ‘performances’ of his latest work, “It Must Have Been Dark By Then” which was being played at the British Library. We tried to find some quiet streets away from the busy Euston Road, covering much of the territory that this latest walking piece may draw you through. 11.5MB 24’29”

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Bruce Mowson talking walking

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Andrew Stuck, producer of Talking Walking, may have been podcasting for ten years, but he always has a little bit of trepidation when he is about to interview an artist who works in sound.  Out and about on a walk, he can use the ambience to cover up some of his clumsy editing, but in conducting an interview over the Internet there are few ways to conceal his inadequacies. When it came to interviewing Australian sound artist Bruce Mowson, Andrew had arranged to walk with him in Greenwich Park while he was in the UK on a family holiday, but fate played its hand in the guise of a train strike, and we never got to do that walk.  So what follows is a call Andrew made to Bruce once he had returned to Coburg, Melbourne, in which they talked about his enthusiasm for walking and how he has put years of studio recording experience behind him in making a piece called “Adventures in Sightlessness“. 23’26” 11MB

 

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Matthew Beaumont talking walking

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It is a busy summer lunchtime in Bloomsbury, and we are within a ‘stone’s throw‘ of where Charles Dickens once lived.  Andrew Stuck, producer of Talking Walking, is in the company of Matthew Beaumont, a scholar and Professor in English Literature at University College London and author of the bestselling book called “Nightwalking, a Nocturnal History of London”. His research interests go far beyond literature as he is also Co-Director of the University’s Urban Lab where he is responsible for the Cities Imagined strand.  22’17”  10.4MB

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Listen to Matthew Beaumont’s 20×20 Vision of walking in 2040

8 Breaths talking walking

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8 Breaths Oxford is produced by Katherine McGavin and Mariana Galan Tanes

8 Breaths participants don masks as Mariana talks about air quality.

Air quality is an issue which is grabbing media interest both here in London and elsewhere.  It is a nebulous, hard to grasp concept, and leaves many of us disempowered – what simple actions can we do to improve the air we breathe?  Katherine McGavin and Mariana Galan Tanes, are two post-graduates studying social sculpture at Oxford Brookes University who have come up with an imaginative, entertaining and thought-provoking way to get us more engaged.

It is an inter-active walking tour of Oxford in 8 Breaths, in which you travel in time and place to discover more about the air we breathe, as well as being a call to personal action.  Andrew Stuck joined a group of twenty on the inaugural 8 Breaths tour at the beginning of July 2017 and spoke to Kat and Mariana immediately afterwards, recording the interview on a busy street corner surrounded by passing tourists. 16′ 34″ 7.8MB

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Want to join an 8 Breaths tour? – click here for more details.

Sharon Thompson talking walking

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Excerpt from ‘Forever Young’

Australian Sharon Thompson trained as a classical singer and contemporary vocalist, worked in a variety of musical contexts, in addition to performing and devising, she coaches solo artists for TV and Music Theatre and the music industry. Passionate about the natural environment, she’s been known to turn her musical skills to assisting with environmental campaigns.

Sharon’s private and professional walking practice is diverse and represents a learning journey in site-responsive listening and making. Interviewed in central London, she had just finished a run of Forever Young at the Traverse in Edinburgh, working with Australian theatre collective one step at a time like this.16’35” 7.8MB

‘Dirt Song’ performed in a Melbourne storm drain

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Julian Rickert talking walking

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Australian, Julian Rickert is a founder member of internationally acclaimed theatre group ‘one step at a time like this’, who was a late starter in theatre, only going to drama college at age thirty. ‘en route’ was a site responsive immersive theatre production first created in the laneways of Melbourne that took the theatre company around the globe, including a visit to London as part of the Cultural Olympiad in 2012.

Taking to the streets, they have created performances for audiences of one at a time, in which you as the audience member engage both imaginatively and directly with the city, passers-by, narrative and your own pace within these. They have devised cinematic experiences on foot using audio, and performances that include overlaying an adaptation of Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure on Chicago, Nashville and Melbourne, in which they use a technique they call “follow film”.

Andrew Stuck, producer of Talking Walking, caught up with Julian on a visit to Bermondsey in London in 2015. 24’20” 11.4MB

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What Julian at one step at a time like this has done since our interview

“Since this interview we have created a number of audience walking works. In September 2017 ‘one step at a time like this’ created Immergence, in which audience intersected with local young people as they journeyed through Torquay, UK.

Through audio and live encounters audience become privy to the voices and perspectives of these local young people as they reflect on their lives and living in a formerly grand tourist destination. Immergence was part of an extended journey-based project by Claire Doherty and Situations, which saw audience travel across three towns and a bay to experience 9 artworks responding to nature-writer Philip Hoare’s reflections about the area.

We have also been developing an episodic night-time experience, Death Keeps Me Awake, for 50 people, each solo and listening to a radio broadcast.

The enigmatic radio broadcast cajoles you to drift through night-time streets and precincts – slowly but inexorably you are drawn to the centre of town, where cues for action and prompts for imagination are embedded, drawing you further into your own journey. Narrative threads evolve over episodes creating a dialogue between the existing world, the narrative fiction and the audience’s imagination.

We continue to create various walking works in places as diverse as Navy Pier, Chicago and outback Australia in Deniliquin.”

Lise Pape talking walking

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Path Feel

Imagine inventing and developing a product that will improve the lives of thousands of people.  That would be an exciting and satisfying prospect. Imagine you develop two at the same time…..  Andrew Stuck was lucky enough to meet and record this interview with just a such a person.  Danish-born innovation design engineer and now med-tech entrepreneur, Lise Pape, with her Path-Finder and Path-Feel shoe accessories, is developing products that will help Parkinson’s sufferers,

Path Finder user test

those with diabetes, and other sensory neuropathy conditions, to improve their mobility and quite probably extend their lives.  We talk as we walk across Clapham Common, early one sunny morning, with the background sounds of commuting traffic and groups trying to get fit. 22’19” 10.5MB

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Kristie Daniel talking walking

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Kristie Daniel

Kristie Daniel

Kristie Daniel is Programme Director for the Liveable Cities Programme delivered by Healthbridge a Canadian NGO. healthbridge-logo Healthbridge were multi-award winners in the 2015 Walk21 Visionary Awards, for projects in developing countries in Asia and Africa, where they are working with local groups to create public spaces and improve non-motorised access to them.

Andrew Stuck, producer of Talking Walking, caught up with Kristie as she stopped over in London, on a journey from Toronto to Bangkok. The interview was recorded in March 2016 on a walk through Margravine Cemetery, a popular public space in Hammersmith, beneath the flight path to and from Heathrow. 26’22” 12.4MB

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What has happened since the interview

“Since the interview was recorded, we have continued to work on all the great projects that I spoke about in the interview.  The HoiAn Master Plan is currently being implemented.  The city has planned for 79 new parks that are within walking distance of residents.  The city has thus far achieved 40% of that targeted number of parks.  In Kathmandu, the success of Ktm Walks has lead to the creation of a one kilometre permanent pedestrian space in Thamel.  This was a huge success for the local project.

In addition, we have been able to greatly expand our projects in Africa thanks to a grant from UN-Habitat.  In Africa—like in many other places in the world—public spaces are used for public life, commerce and interaction. However, lack of funds, planning, and maintenance, as well as priority for motorized vehicles, has turned many public spaces into unsafe, unforgiving and unconnected places. Many public spaces are difficult to access, especially for those living in vulnerable situations.

This is especially the case in Kampala, Uganda, Niamey, Niger and Accra, Ghana. There is a significant lack of formal public spaces in each of these cities, particularly in the outlying areas where the slum settlements are located. Of those spaces that do exist, they are degraded, of poor quality, and under constant threat of being developed into other purposes.

To address this issue, HealthBridge is working with local partners to  implement pilot public space projects in Kampala, Niamey, and Accra.  These spaces will improve local policies, plans and designs for safe, inclusive and accessible public spaces.  The final results of this project should be available in May.”

Listen to Kristie Daniel’s 20×20 Vision of walking in 2040

Tim Ingram-Smith talking walking

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Tim (far right) with fellow Spiral walkers

Tim (far right) with fellow Spiral walkers

Andrew Stuck first met Tim Ingram-Smith back in 2015 when he came on a walkshop to reveal the lost neighbourhood of London’s Kings Cross, on which Andrew had collaborated with fellow Talking Walking interviewee, Tom Bolton.  Tim mentioned that he was about to embark on a 3 year expedition to discover parts of London he had never visited.  He talked about how he was going to navigate his way across the metropolis, by following a set of spiral routes, beginning from Kings Cross. Andrew’s curiosity was piqued and he knew at that at some point, he would need to join Tim with his sound recorder to hand.

Recorded in November 2016 on part of a leg of the London Spiral, from West Ham Park to Forest Gate station. Published in November 2016. 19′ 18″ 18.2MB

full-spiral-route

Full Spiral route – November 2016

If reading before the end of 2018, why not join Tim Ingram-Smith on a leg of the London Spiral – further details here:  https://londonspiral.wordpress.com

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Martin Foessleitner talking walking

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Martin Foessleitner is an Information Designer living in Vienna. As he undertakes all his dailyVienna_way_marker1 errands on foot, he knows his neighbourhood intimately. However, Vienna isn’t just for residents, it attracts day trippers and is an international tourist destination. Andrew Stuck walked with Martin through the centre of the city on a sunny October day as he explained to me how he came to design the city’s way marking system and how when providing information to those on foot, less is more.Vienna_way_marker2

Recorded in October 2015 on a walk through Vienna in Austria. Published in June 2016 26’45” 12.5MB

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What Martin has been doing since our interview

“Universal design in a new attitude: understood as a right on privacy, access to public spaces and participation in social life for everyone in any situation, a basic design principle assisted by invisible serving technology, we are fascinated by combining analog maps with augmented reality functions.”

Ben Waddington talking walking

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e-1

Getting under the skin of a city like Birmingham isn’t something you can do overnight, although that was how Ben Waddington and a group friends began their quest some ten years ago. It was almost by accident that Ben became a guide to the hidden, overlooked or secret parts of the city.  He was trying to help people out in finding out about forgotten characters in Birmingham’s cultural and industrial past.

 

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Images from previous Still Walking events

Ben quickly recognised that he couldn’t be an expert in all things Birmingham and has since set out to help others reveal what is under the city’s skin, by setting up the Still Walking Festival, and supporting local people to tell their stories.

Interview by Andrew Stuck: Recorded in July 2015 on a walk in Old St Pancras Churchyard in London. Published in April 2016 25’07” 11.8MB

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STOP PRESS – SEPTEMBER 2017

Ben Waddington has drawn together an intriguing mix of walks and talks for the Still Walking Festival – it is a fantastic programme that includes the British Army and tightrope walkers. Read more here..