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One by Walking

A new network of walking scholars are working together through stakeholder and researcher driven creative walkshops in the Nordic North. The group so far have looked at the following themes: mobilities and post-pandemic changes of lifestyle and heritage, tourism and sustainability futures.

Object Mapping being used in an international workshop. Dominica Williamson and Dr John Martin who co-created the method (building on Coral Communities project work) shared it with a team of researchers, to investigate the connections between mobilities and post-pandemic changes of lifestyle through stakeholder and scholar driven creative workshops in Baroniet Rosendal, Norway. Funded by The Nordic Research Council in the Humanities and Social sciences (NOS-HS). Photograph: Dominica Williamson

Sharing methods through action on the ground the researchers are exchanging ideas, including ethnography and qualitative research styles. Through this activity they are building capacity and driving new methods forward. The group travels to different countries as well as delivers workshops online.

As an artist I have been asked to walkshop in Norway, Sweden, Finland and Iceland. We are currently looking at outcomes which share methods outside of academia as well as within it. Importantly we want to build capacity within communities as well as within academia.

Object Mapping being used in an international workshop. Dominica Williamson and Dr John Martin who co-created the method (building on Coral Communities project work) shared it with a team of researchers, to investigate the connections between mobilities and post-pandemic changes of lifestyle through stakeholder and scholar driven creative workshops in Baroniet Rosendal, Norway. Funded by The Nordic Research Council in the Humanities and Social sciences (NOS-HS). Photograph: Dominica Williamson

So far, I have shared my methods with the network through a workshop on zoom and in Norway and Sweden. I am collecting feedback from delegates through each workshop and integrating it into the methods. The network is interdisciplinary, for instance there are artists, dancers, musicians, folklorists, anthropologists, geographers and eco-writers. We are currently shaping a website for the network.

New Website by Network

Object Mapping being used in an international workshop. Dominica Williamson and Dr John Martin who co-created the method (building on Coral Communities project work) shared it with a team of researchers, to investigate the connections between mobilities and post-pandemic changes of lifestyle through stakeholder and scholar driven creative workshops in Baroniet Rosendal, Norway. Funded by The Nordic Research Council in the Humanities and Social sciences (NOS-HS). Photograph: Dominica Williamson

Norway: Funded by The Nordic Research Council in the Humanities and Social sciences (NOS-HS).

Sweden: Funded by Funded by Riksbankens jubileumsfond

For me your method [Dom] was an experience of very quickly getting to the heart of someone’s heart of their idea of their landscape compared to otherwise hours of interviews.And with the other members of my group the landscape showed elements of their work life, their home, it showed different bits of their landscape. For the other groups not being so intimately familiar with the landscape, it meant it was easier for other people in them to connect wider issues to these micro landscapes.Yes it created deep-rooted thoughts and ideas and imaginaries without very expert interviewing.These boxes are super good for grounded theory.

— Rose Keller, Participant

This collaborative exercise and somehow random mapping of a place in Vålådalen was surprisingly rewarding for me. I usually think of myself as a systematic type of mapper, integrating both objective —more or less quantitative— data (as GPS waypoints and distance and other measurements), and subjective data, represented by the valorisation and narratives of a place by the people that engage with it. So I perhaps approached this exercise with a little nostalgic mistrust and suspicion, as it also resonated with things I did in a previous life of research and practice in the performative arts. But I was then caught up in immediate fascination and concentration by the exercise, and realised that is something that I want to repeat, to do again in other places.

— Alejandro Reig, Participant

The collecting provided a rhythm, and we felt it was a rhythm created by us together. The objects collected in these bags were given some sort of scientific exactitude that responded both to practices of ethnographic observation and artistic processes. Natalia and I also felt strongly the shift from “recreation-walks-land” and ancestral land of Sami, hence we both agreed to play with the idea to add ancestors to the bag. As we exhibited the bags on a string (moved by the wind) , we kept the timeline, and thus recreated our walk for others to see and experience. We added performative elements, such as releasing the ancestors again, and we returned plants to the place where we found them.

— Ami Skanberg Dahlstedt, Participant