Walkspace is a Birmingham-based collective of artists, writers, psychogeographers, photographers, creative practitioners and walkers.

It was set up by three friends: Andy Howlett, Fiona Cullinan and Pete Ashton. Each have their own individual walking practices but joined together as a group after being inspired by ‘Walking’s New Movements‘ at the University of Plymouth: a 2019 conference to discuss the latest developments and future prospects for radical walking and walking arts.

What does Walkspace do?

Walkspace exists to bring together West Midlands-based artists and creative practitioners who use walking as part of their practice. We aim to create a community of mutual support and peer mentoring, working as a cooperative collective to support the creation of new work.

We are deliberately starting small and intend to grow organically in response to the emerging needs of the collective. That said, we have some big plans. Along the way we will create a permanent archive of creative walking activity in the West Mids.

Who’s in Walkspace?

Who runs Walkspace?

Walkspace is run by a committee elected annually by the membership. As of January 2021 this is Andy Howlett, Fiona Cullinan and Pete Ashton, the founder members. The committee looks after the administration of Walkspace and keeps it focussed on the mission at hand.

Walks, events and projects are either run autonomously by members with Walkspace support, run by Walkspace as an entity involving members, or something inbetween.

Ultimately, the “formal” side of Walkspace exists to support the membership in their own practice.

We currently receive no funding and are run on a voluntary basis. Of course this is not sustainable in the long term but we have to start somewhere.

What sort of walking do you cover?

This is not an exhaustive list of what we’re interested in by any means, but it should give you a taste.

• Non-normal walking
• Art walks
• Protest walks
• Social walks
• Community walks
• Group walks
• Solo walks
• Walking for mental health
• Micro adventures
• Walks about ageing
• Walks exploring pain
• Guided walks
• Unguided walks
• Scored walks
• Gamified walks
• Interactive walks
• Uninteractive walks
• Walks and talks
• Stirchley walks
• Psychogeography
• Mythogeography
• Geography
• Shadow walks
• Video walks
• Documenting walks
• Explorations
• Mystery walks
• Dementia walks
• Walking to combat loneliness
• Themed walks
• Therapeutic walks
• Nature-based walks
• Sunrise walks
• Sunset walks
• Pagan walks
• Monotheistic walks
• Slow walking
• Fast walking
• Neither slow nor fast walking
• Camera walks
• Data capture walks
• Walks which follow the invisible infrastructure of the internet
• Weird maps
• Deep Topography
• Counter Tourism
• Guerrilla Heritage
• Micro odysseys