Walking as a method of gaining knowledge is not new. The Peripatetic School meandered under the trees to learn Philosophy under the tutelage of Socrates and Aristotle; Jean Jacques Rousseau wrote about walking in "Confessions" and "Reveries of a Solitary Walker"; Henry David Thoreau wrote the essay "Walking" in 1862; and the avant-garde Situationists' idea of dérive challenged the rise of consumerist spectacle. These examples show the long history of walking as a method of generating ideas, art, and critique. HPU is an ongoing collaboration with like-minded individuals to explore, experiment, and engage with such historical ideas around perambulation, as well as with current concepts and artistic practices.
See our RESOURCES page for a list of artists, writers, philosophers and fellow walkers.
Check out our PROJECTS page for both upcoming and past walks, as well as ongoing projects such as Word Walks, where the challenge is to see the city as text, to find words and write poems with them. Googlemap City Center Drift takes as its starting point the spot where Googlemaps has placed its city marker (see map below). KM2 takes a square kilometer as a tool for exploring a neighbourhood.
Find our FACEBOOK Page for news and updates, and our BLOG for archived walk documentation.
Happy Wanderings!