Making Space
Morag Rose, The Feminist Art of Walking
Pluto Press, 240pp, £16.99, ISBN 9780745350998
reviewed by Kate Bugos
On the first Sunday of every month, academic and activist Morag Rose can be found walking, wandering, meandering, shuffling, or best of all loitering, down the streets of Manchester with like-minded loiterers of all sorts. Their walks — which have been taking place for 20 years – are guided and not-guided by different games, instructions, motivations, or lack thereof, with an ever-changing group of companions. Each experience of this collective loitering is ephemeral and unique.
Rose, the co-founder of the Loiterers Resistance Movement, introduces her book The Feminist Art of Walking by proudly proclaiming: ‘I am a loiterer because I believe walking can change the world.’ In Rose’s words, ‘walking can be a powerful artistic, creative and political act’, and this book seeks to explore the subject while offering an intersectional anarchist feminist subversion of the way we talk about walking, cities, and spaces.
The existing literature on walking, especially urban walking, is overwhelmingly masculine. Baudelaire’s figure of the flâneur — made famous in his 1863 essay ‘The Painter of Modern Life’ — walks unnoticed through urban space, exploring and observing the crowds and city around him; he does not participate in the scenes of urban life, but operates with an ambivalent detachment, seeking only to be entertained and perhaps to document what he sees.
Later, Walter Benjamin identified the flâneur as an inherently modern bourgeois construct, a symbol of alienation in the capitalist cityscape. Benjamin both sought to define the flâneur and acted as one himself, writing at length on his observations in the covered arcades of Paris during the era of burgeoning industrial capitalism.
The next juncture came with the Situationist International, who pioneered the now-familiar field of psychogeography. Writing in his seminal 1955 essay ‘Introduction to a Critique of Urban Geography’, Situationist founder Guy Debord said:
In her introduction, walking artist, activist, and academic Morag Rose invites a critique of the Situationist approach to space. She writes: ‘There is a frequent tendency for the SI to view themselves as conquering and penetrating space, discovering somewhere for the first time. This demonstrates scant regard for those who already inhabit it, disrespecting or disregarding the experiences of others.’ She also critiques the male notion of the flâneur, who 'embodies the myth of the perfect walker. He is male, wealthy and able-bodied, he can walk freely anywhere he chooses. Problems arise because his body is privileged above all others and viewed as universal’.
As a queer, disabled, working-class woman, Rose found this male literature did not speak to her. These aspects of her identity made her all too aware of the potential hostilities of urban space, whether that is accessibility, physical safety, or simply struggling to feel like you belong. Rose also critiques the flâneuristic notion of urban detachment. Rose’s experiences of urban space are not detached, but often intimately involved. Whether that is through campaigns against privatisation of public space, fighting for greater accessibility, or guerrilla-style art interventions, the feminist art of walking is one that is engaged in the active construction of urban life.
In each chapter, Rose focuses on a different city or town that holds meaning to her. In, Manchester, she explores the changing landscape of the city through gentrification, privatisation, and securitisation. This interweaves social narratives, such as the regeneration of Manchester’s Northern Quarter, with Rose’s personal narratives, namely her involvement in The Basement, an anarchist social centre in the same district. She goes on to describe the bars, parks, shops, and cafes that have come and gone throughout this process.
Her examination of Liverpool explores the ways urban architecture can be hostile — not just to the homeless population, as the term hostile architecture is usually applied, but to disabled people, women, parents, queer people, and many more marginalised groups. She draws on the work of feminist geographers such as Leslie Kern, who writes in The Feminist City that ‘to take a feminist stance on cities is to wrestle with a set of entangled power relationships. Asking “women’s questions” about the city means asking about so much more than gender’.
This intersectional lens invites discussion of public restroom provision, urban lighting design, lifts, ramps, and dropped kerbs, cobblestones that pose a challenge to prams and mobility aids, and much more besides. This discussion is not unidirectional — some of these access needs may clash with heritage preservation, environmental conservation, or even other access needs. Nevertheless, Rose invites us to expand our notion of urban walking to ensure everyone has an equal right to it, whether that is on foot, on wheels, or with a walking stick.
Rose also explores the literal ‘art’ of walking. While the most prominent pioneer of walking art was Richard Long with his 1967 piece A Line Made By Walking, the walking artist most likely to be familiar to readers is Yoko Ono, whose 1962 Map Piece invited spectators to ‘Draw A Map to Get Lost’. Walking art exists at the intersections of performance art, dance and movement, land art, and many other fields of expression.
For some, walking is the art: Jess Allen’s Trans-Missions was a performance piece that required her to speak to every person she encountered on her walk and ask them for a message to transmit to the next person she met. For others, walking is the context, as with the myriad socially conscious artists engaged in creating walking tours on queer history, working class identity, and much more. Among the more inventive works is Sonia Overall’s Drift Deck, a deck of cards full of creative walking prompts.
This engagement with walking art helps to highlight Marxist geographer Doreen Massey’s conception of space. Massey developed a theory of space as an ‘articulated moment in networks of social relations and understandings’, something that is constantly in flux and affected by the people and forces present therein. Massey’s influence can be felt throughout this text, especially in the section on her native Manchester. Rose quotes Massey’s assertion that ‘space is always under construction … It is never finished, never closed. Perhaps we could imagine space as a simultaneity of stories-so-far’.
Following this thread, one of Rose’s investigations that helped form the basis of this book was her thesis Women Walking Manchester: Desire Lines Through The Original Modern City. Her research methodology involved walking interviews with 43 different women in Manchester about their movements through the city, generally starting in the central grassy plaza of Piccadilly Gardens. Through this, Rose discovered the different ways that Piccadilly Gardens was constructed through participants’ different subjectivities. For some it was scary and unsafe; for others it was a symbol of neoliberal privatisation of public space; for others still it held fond memories of being a meeting place for friends and family. All of these stories together are concurrent and ever evolving.
The Feminist Art of Walking is not just about ‘reclaiming space’, but about reclaiming the idea of space. Rose explores how space is made by all of us, and how we can continue to assert our right to making, using, and existing within the urban landscape.
Rose, the co-founder of the Loiterers Resistance Movement, introduces her book The Feminist Art of Walking by proudly proclaiming: ‘I am a loiterer because I believe walking can change the world.’ In Rose’s words, ‘walking can be a powerful artistic, creative and political act’, and this book seeks to explore the subject while offering an intersectional anarchist feminist subversion of the way we talk about walking, cities, and spaces.
The existing literature on walking, especially urban walking, is overwhelmingly masculine. Baudelaire’s figure of the flâneur — made famous in his 1863 essay ‘The Painter of Modern Life’ — walks unnoticed through urban space, exploring and observing the crowds and city around him; he does not participate in the scenes of urban life, but operates with an ambivalent detachment, seeking only to be entertained and perhaps to document what he sees.
Later, Walter Benjamin identified the flâneur as an inherently modern bourgeois construct, a symbol of alienation in the capitalist cityscape. Benjamin both sought to define the flâneur and acted as one himself, writing at length on his observations in the covered arcades of Paris during the era of burgeoning industrial capitalism.
The next juncture came with the Situationist International, who pioneered the now-familiar field of psychogeography. Writing in his seminal 1955 essay ‘Introduction to a Critique of Urban Geography’, Situationist founder Guy Debord said:
Psychogeography sets for itself the study of the precise laws and specific effects of the geographical environment, whether consciously organized or not, on the emotions and behavior of individuals. The charmingly vague adjective psychogeographical can be applied to the findings arrived at by this type of investigation, to their influence on human feelings, and more generally to any situation or conduct that seems to reflect the same spirit of discovery.
In her introduction, walking artist, activist, and academic Morag Rose invites a critique of the Situationist approach to space. She writes: ‘There is a frequent tendency for the SI to view themselves as conquering and penetrating space, discovering somewhere for the first time. This demonstrates scant regard for those who already inhabit it, disrespecting or disregarding the experiences of others.’ She also critiques the male notion of the flâneur, who 'embodies the myth of the perfect walker. He is male, wealthy and able-bodied, he can walk freely anywhere he chooses. Problems arise because his body is privileged above all others and viewed as universal’.
As a queer, disabled, working-class woman, Rose found this male literature did not speak to her. These aspects of her identity made her all too aware of the potential hostilities of urban space, whether that is accessibility, physical safety, or simply struggling to feel like you belong. Rose also critiques the flâneuristic notion of urban detachment. Rose’s experiences of urban space are not detached, but often intimately involved. Whether that is through campaigns against privatisation of public space, fighting for greater accessibility, or guerrilla-style art interventions, the feminist art of walking is one that is engaged in the active construction of urban life.
In each chapter, Rose focuses on a different city or town that holds meaning to her. In, Manchester, she explores the changing landscape of the city through gentrification, privatisation, and securitisation. This interweaves social narratives, such as the regeneration of Manchester’s Northern Quarter, with Rose’s personal narratives, namely her involvement in The Basement, an anarchist social centre in the same district. She goes on to describe the bars, parks, shops, and cafes that have come and gone throughout this process.
Her examination of Liverpool explores the ways urban architecture can be hostile — not just to the homeless population, as the term hostile architecture is usually applied, but to disabled people, women, parents, queer people, and many more marginalised groups. She draws on the work of feminist geographers such as Leslie Kern, who writes in The Feminist City that ‘to take a feminist stance on cities is to wrestle with a set of entangled power relationships. Asking “women’s questions” about the city means asking about so much more than gender’.
This intersectional lens invites discussion of public restroom provision, urban lighting design, lifts, ramps, and dropped kerbs, cobblestones that pose a challenge to prams and mobility aids, and much more besides. This discussion is not unidirectional — some of these access needs may clash with heritage preservation, environmental conservation, or even other access needs. Nevertheless, Rose invites us to expand our notion of urban walking to ensure everyone has an equal right to it, whether that is on foot, on wheels, or with a walking stick.
Rose also explores the literal ‘art’ of walking. While the most prominent pioneer of walking art was Richard Long with his 1967 piece A Line Made By Walking, the walking artist most likely to be familiar to readers is Yoko Ono, whose 1962 Map Piece invited spectators to ‘Draw A Map to Get Lost’. Walking art exists at the intersections of performance art, dance and movement, land art, and many other fields of expression.
For some, walking is the art: Jess Allen’s Trans-Missions was a performance piece that required her to speak to every person she encountered on her walk and ask them for a message to transmit to the next person she met. For others, walking is the context, as with the myriad socially conscious artists engaged in creating walking tours on queer history, working class identity, and much more. Among the more inventive works is Sonia Overall’s Drift Deck, a deck of cards full of creative walking prompts.
This engagement with walking art helps to highlight Marxist geographer Doreen Massey’s conception of space. Massey developed a theory of space as an ‘articulated moment in networks of social relations and understandings’, something that is constantly in flux and affected by the people and forces present therein. Massey’s influence can be felt throughout this text, especially in the section on her native Manchester. Rose quotes Massey’s assertion that ‘space is always under construction … It is never finished, never closed. Perhaps we could imagine space as a simultaneity of stories-so-far’.
Following this thread, one of Rose’s investigations that helped form the basis of this book was her thesis Women Walking Manchester: Desire Lines Through The Original Modern City. Her research methodology involved walking interviews with 43 different women in Manchester about their movements through the city, generally starting in the central grassy plaza of Piccadilly Gardens. Through this, Rose discovered the different ways that Piccadilly Gardens was constructed through participants’ different subjectivities. For some it was scary and unsafe; for others it was a symbol of neoliberal privatisation of public space; for others still it held fond memories of being a meeting place for friends and family. All of these stories together are concurrent and ever evolving.
The Feminist Art of Walking is not just about ‘reclaiming space’, but about reclaiming the idea of space. Rose explores how space is made by all of us, and how we can continue to assert our right to making, using, and existing within the urban landscape.