Walking as a wandering ethic of (re)location: A public ‘pedagogy of hope’

This paper considers the public pedagogy of location in relation to walking. I walk and write withand from my compass orientated to the Freirean notion of a ‘pedagogy of hope’. Using an autoethnographic account of a local walk, walking is (re)presented and interpreted as a wanderingethic of (re)location. Temporal and spatial dimensions of my walking are revealed in the social,cultural and ecological context of the bushfires and the pandemic. Drawing from scholars whotheorize embodiment and the multiple natures of body~time~space, the inter and intra-actionswith/in ecologies are presenced in a sensory narrative. To consider walking as a wandering ethicof (re)location, it is argued that various temporal, spatial, material, historical and cultural dimensions are contingent within the context of change as evident in the aftermath of bushfires and thepandemic. What I examine is the inter-play in relation to what is present and otherwise absentwhilst walking that is interpreted as a ‘pedagogy of hope’ amidst the struggles and uncertaintiesof these times.

Walking and Collecting: How can our thinking on materials and process in contemporary collection-based art be realised through the act and purpose of walking?

Walking and art have long been intertwined, much like collecting and art. As best put by artist Patrick Pound, it’s the notion of a ‘gathering of thoughts, through things’ (Pound, 2017) – a way of combatting the dispersive and entropic nature of the artefact-centric world we live in. Walking is it the ‘modality of lived experience’ (Forgione, 2005); an everyday, routine activity and yet one that as conscious beings, we know to be much more than just walking. What walking and collectingshare is a preoccupation with time, scope, and a need to find a sense of completion to – or perhaps dominion over – the overwhelming expanse of our existence. It can then be theorised that walking and collecting when done in unison, are the process and method that provide the artist with the contextual and conceptual mechanisms for the acquisition and subsequent display of these thoughts.

Learning and Experiencing Intra-active Public Pedagogies in Melbourne’s Laneways: Becoming Part of the Palimpsest

Through an analysis of street art in Melbourne, Australia, we re-think pedagogies in the interest of publicness as being activist, experimental, and demonstrative, showing how these aspects can be problematised through a new materialist lens. In doing so, we begin to flesh out what we are calling a pedagogy of intra-action. We first briefly define street art, discussing how it has been presented as a democratising practice much in the spirit of Gert Biesta’s ‘pedagogy in the interest of publicness’. We then provide a brief historical overview of street art in Melbourne as well as present some current issues surrounding it. Finally, we consider the phenomenon of street art with new materialist theories, using Karen Barad’s idea of intra-action to re-think Biesta’s ideas about how pedagogies in the interest of publicness are activist, experimental, and demonstrative. In this paper, we seek to further understand Gert Biesta’s pedagogy in the interest of publicness.

Hosier and Rutledge Lanes—where anyone can go and make art and other stories

Hosier and Rutledge Lanes in Melbourne are concentrated areas of street art, widely understood as places where anyone is free to add art to the wall. During a group installation to celebrate International Women’s Day, the lanes revealed their darker sides, challenging the author’s rosy view. This encounter led research to find other stories of the lanes in relation to inclusion and exclusion. The lanes revealed themselves as a place where current issues and contradictions of public lifeand public art are brought into the spotlight. Because Hosier and Rutledge lanes are controversial sites of beauty, fame, and vice they draw the limelight of the media and act as pedagogical sites which stimulate debate and argument.

One Step and I am Elsewhere

I am interested in the journeys, many of these on foot, undertaken by displaced peoples of the world, refugees, asylum seekers, migrants of all walks of life. I am currently conducting a walk that constitutes the first leg of a larger journey from the northern border with Albania to Lesvos, a journey undertaken by a group of Albanian migrants I encountered during a walking residency in Lesvos in 2008. The final leg of the journey will involve walking from the port in Mitilene, Lesvos tomy parent’s villages, where I encountered the Albanian families.The work is a tribute to all displaced persons that seek to return to their birthplaces (including my now deceased parents) and this yearning to ‘return’ which never leaves, and their right to do so.

Exploring the Identities of Greek Migrant Young Adults Through Their New Media Use: Combining Public Pedagogy, Participatory Narrative Inquiry, A/r/tography and Heteroglossia

In the 21st century, transnational migration is increasingly commonplace alongside the proliferation of new media. Adolescent migrants are especially well versed in new media, and their interactions allow insights into identity representation and negotiation. We know from current research that a sense of self is likely to be affected and interrupted when migrating to a new country, but we do not know the ways young people with transnational identities, negotiate, shape and are shaped by new media. Using a Participatory Narrative Inquiry approach and arts-based research methods, this research will explore how Greek migrant youths living in Melbourne use new media to communicate and describe their identity. In sharing deeply personal narratives, what do the participants learn about new media’s role in their identity formation?

Book Reviews

Trump, the Alt-right and Public Pedagogies of Hate and for Fascism—What is to be Done?Mike Cole, London, Routledge, 2019 Theresa May, The Hostile Environment and the Public Pedagogies of Hate and Threat—the Case for a Future Without BordersMike Cole, London, Routledge, 2020

SaltWalks: Vancouver, Nanaimo, Toronto

SaltWalks (2013-ongoing) is a performance series that takes participants on site-specific salt tasting walks through different city neighborhoods. Each walk begins at a designated meeting point where fellow walkers sample five different salts, including table salt, Celtic sea salt, Himalayan rock salt, Hawaiian clay salt, and Alderwood smoked salt. These tastings are served from a custom salt apron designed specifically for walking. Our savory comparisons initiate far-ranging conversations exploring the uses of salt across time and different cultures. Through an engagement with this elemental mineral, these walks become a pedagogical platform that embodies aesthetic and philosophical enquiries into the importance of this substance to ritual, survival, health, industry and the imagination.

Walking at Midnight: Women and Danger on Delhi’s Streets

I discuss the walking practice of Delhi-based artist Mallika Taneja in the context of its engagement with, and intervention in, the contemporary conversations on sexualised violence, gender, space and mobility in India. Taneja’s work is part of a variety of feminist activism to take place in India since the horrific gang rape of Jyoti Singh in Delhi in December 2012. Taneja organises regular midnight walks in various parts of the city, which are advertised via social media. This essay explores the significance of walking as a pedagogical tool to understand the relationship between gender, city, space and mobility in Delhi. When conversations on sexualized violence are accelerating in the wake of #MeToo, I examine the contours of embodied knowledge practices enabled by collective walking by women at midnight. I discuss how walking-based methodologies allow for a learning process that is lived, somatic, and personal and which is rooted in specific spatial contexts based on listening and care. Using an intersectional perspective that pays close attention to the role of region, class, caste, sexuality and ethnicity (Mohanty, 2013), this essay is also a prompt against a unified theory of gender, safety, and mobility.