Walking in Art Education

This edited collection highlights ways that arts-educators have taken up important questions around learning with the land through walking practices across spatial, temporal and cultural differences. These walking practices serve as ecopedagogical moments that attune us to human-land and more-than-human relationships, while also moving past Western-centric understandings of land and place. Yet it is also more than this as the book situates this work in a/r/tographic practices taking up walking as one method for engagement.

Authors explore walking and a/r/tography in their local contexts. As a result, the book finds that kinship and relationality are significant themes that permeate across a/r/tographic practices focused on ecopedagogy and learning with the land.

Unique to this collection is the weaving of groundings that both guide each chapter and emphasize the philosophical commitment of the book. Each grounding is written by scholars or artists with Indigenous backgrounds to Turtle Island (North America) or are scholars who are Indigenous to other countries and places who are now working in Canadian university settings. Many are Elders, cultural stewards, knowledge keepers, and stewards of the land who find themselves immersed in practices that are artful, ecological, and in many instances, involve the practice of walking. Each grounding offers an important lesson or prompt for readers to consider as they engage with the chapters, as well as offering a conceptual re-centring and grounding to the land and the traditional knowledges from the territories on which this collection is being produced and edited.

Anishnaabe kwe scholar and artist Anna-Leah King reflects on the teachings of Alfred Manitopeyes, a Saulteaux Elder from Muskcowekwun, Pimosatamowin, who shares that good walking and good talking is more than just a metaphor.

Ojibwa scholar and artist Natalie Owl troubles the dictionary definition of anecdotal in relation to walking in the world as an Indigenous woman.

Mukwa Musayett, Shelly Johnson, reflects on her relationship to the natural elements, revealing how the winds have helped her learn emotional intimacy- from feelings of grief, frustration, anger, respect, power, love and gratitude.

Metis scholar and artist Shannon Leddy invites the reader to a time-travelling walk, tracing the colonial legacies of the land where she now lives in Vancouver, Musqueam Territory, going...read more...