For the first part of this walking project, I took students on a walk around our community, OCAD University. I provided a brief history of the community and asked them to look at this walk as a discovery walk in the urban environment. Pause at spots you wouldn’t have regularly. Take time to look at architectural details and styles, landscapes and gardens or lack of. What is the history of street names in the communal radius? How do you see yourself in this community? Listen to the sonic elements of the city and what they tell us. How can this be visually represented, interpreted and theoretically documented?
Shannon’s response to our first walking as pedagogy exercise is expressed through her delicate line drawings on acetate. She decided to document her walk from home to OCAD University, a walk she has taken for the past four years, but through this assignment has come to appreciate aspects that went unnoticed before. These are her thoughts on walking.
“I love the idea of using walking and art as a method of communication and a tool for learning. I know creation can be beneficial to everyone, regardless of skill level or intellect on the subject, there holds a certain sense of wonder curiosity about the creative process we get from walking and observing”-Shannon, 2016.
