Walkspace launches Parallel Walking this Saturday
Hello Walkers!
This is the newsletter of Walkspace, the art-walking collective for the West Midlands.
We are excited to announce that our first exhibition Parallel Walking, launches this Saturday, February 5th at Artefact, Stirchley and you’re all invited.
Parallel Walking is a walk-based cultural exchange exploring two cities – Birmingham, UK, and Yogyakarta, Indonesia – as part of the British Council’s Connections Through Culture programme. We teamed up with Jalan Gembira, a female-led walking practitioners group based in Yogyakarta to explore, through walking, the things that connect our two cities.
Like Birmingham, Yogyakarta is a ‘motor city’ where walking is secondary to the car/motorbike/moped, where public space has been eroded by private interests, and where the infrastructure of the city can make walking feel unsafe for pedestrians. These were just a few shared themes we identified in our talks.
In December 2021, artists and participants in each city walked in parallel, gaining insights into their own cities to share with each other through an editorial exchange process resulting in a zine and exhibition.
Exhibition Launch
The Walkspace-Jalan Gembira exhibition launches on 5 February 2022 with the same materials exhibited in both cities. The zine (digital and print) will launch online a week later on 12 February with artist presentations online.
Jalan Gembira will host its exhibition on pos kamling (community watch posts) in the neighbourhoods where they walked. Walkspace will host its exhibition at Artefact in Stirchley by recreating an indoor pos kamling in the gallery.
We hope you can join us for the Birmingham launch at 7pm at Artefact this Saturday 5th. Prior to the launch there will be an opportunity to join Walkspace artist Fiona Cullinan for a short walk around the alleyways, cut-throughs and footpaths of B30. To join the walk meet at the Artefact pos kamling at 2:30pm, Feb 5th.
The exhibition will run 5-19th February 2022 accompanied by walks, talks and film screenings, details of which you can find at http://walkspace.uk/parallel-walking/ — we hope to see you there!
All the best,
Andy, Fiona and Pete: The Walkspace Committee.