Project Lead: Matthew Dowell

Number of participants: 15

Duration: 4 days

Project Outline:

“Flâneur is a French term meaning ‘stroller’ or ‘loafer’ used by nineteenth-century French poet Charles Baudelaire to identify an observer of modern urban life” (Tate website).

How can you use walking in your work? If at all..starting with a small introduction to the idea of the Flaneur, walking and observing and using a number of pre-set and ‘random’ locations in London we will each go on our own walks/journeys and use those spaces to make work. What is produced from the walk is open  and will depend on your walk and how you respond to it, different approaches to this are welcomed.

On the Tuesday participants would then do their walk and start to make responses which will continue through to the Wednesday. This will end with a group crit of the work and a discussion on ideas coming about the walk such as; does ‘forcing’ a walk/pre planning routes for this kind of activity change the way we observe? Does the work have to be produced on site? For the site? Have anything to do with the site? This will culminate in a small publication/zine documenting the walks taken that week and will be launched with an exhibition of the work.

Timetable:

Day 1: Monday 4th November:
AM- Introduction to the project, flaneur
PM-  Fortune teller making and on-site walking

Day 2: Tuesday 5th November:
Independent walking/making

Day 3: Wednesday 6th November:
AM- Independent making
PM- Making publication sheets

Day 4: Friday 8th November:
AM- Set up
PM- Crit/launch