Place is learning us
This paper examines and explains the motivation behind our performance walks. Our method involves a repeated research walk in which we look for the memories inscribed into place, and consider that whilst we are learning place, place is also learning us. The practice is concerned with mapping processes of exchange that occur between ourselves and others, including non-human others.
We are committed to acts of observation as a method for coming closer to place and developing attentiveness to our internal and external environment. The walks are deliberately low key and non-spectacular – concentrating the audience’s attention on what is already there; what is hidden or behind things.
A guided performance walk may draw our attention to vastly different times and places, to articulate a passage beyond everyday spatial and temporal flows. The walks allude to the serendipity of things, the interconnectedness of histories, species, times and places.
Keywords: more-than-human others; place