We trust our most intimate moments to institutions. From the moment of birth to that of death, institutions guide our experience of the world and shape our sense of self. It is striking then that institutions often carry a cold and foreboding presence- of not being sites that are all that welcoming. Using peripatetic encounters with the hospital and museum as two institutional case sites, this project charts the affective dynamics of experiencing the institution through walking.
Encounters with space and others in the institution will be charted according to an aporia of affect. Using Witcomb’s suggestion that a ‘pedagogy of walking’ permeates encounters with the institution and Bennett’s (1995) mention that institutions such as the hospital and museum provoke ‘organised walking’, this Australian-based project seeks to understand the emotional heuristics of walking the institution.
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Witcomb, A. (2003) Re-Imagining the Museum: Beyond the Mausoleum. Pp129.
Bennett, T. (1995). The Birth of the Museum.