And Walking Into the Space Between ...

• In Event: Material and Digital A/r/tographic Explorations in Community

Abstract

Objectives: This arts-based inquiry offers a pedagogical and poetic pause with the practice of walking AND thinking AND writing AND imagemaking as a combined and interwoven a/r/tographic exploration, and how this practice can gesture toward a way of thinking with the potential of AND to engage with notions such as co-existence, multiplicity, in-tentionality, and the not yet in a/r/tographic research. The term ‘oxidizing method’ is introduced as a way to document the traces of walks in material and immaterial forms.

Theoretical Perspectives: The notion of co-existence is an invisible thread that stiches different aspects of this inquiry together. Thinking with AND in relation to the potential of co-existing leads one to wonder about AND as a conceptual in-between space; a space that, in Aokian language, invites dwelling (Aoki, 1983/2004). Through the use of AND, there is a nod toward playfulness in walking with research questions, while leaving the door open for what Greene (2001) advocates, “the not yet” (p. 202). This combined practice as an a/r/tographic exploration, to move away from the dichotomy of theory and practice, to “see them as twin moments of the same reality” (Aoki, 1983/2004, p. 120) and to attend to the potential ways of knowing that emerge in their in-between spaces, intersections, connections, and synergies (Irwin, 2003).

Methods and Data Sources: Questions like ‘with whom do I walk?’ (Physically, virtually, and conceptually) and ‘with what do I walk?’ (Recording materials and devices such as mark making tools, paper, digital camera, sound recorder, etc.) shape ways of becoming oriented to some things more than others in these walking studies. This way of thinking with images and text resonates with how a/r/tographic research strives to unfold the potentialities that lie in the coexistence of text, images, and their in-between space, without prioritizing either of them (Springgay et al., 2005).

Results: This work traces something from the practice of walking in material and immaterial forms. Through years of becoming engaged with walking, as an artful and conceptual way of being in the world, the author comes to understand that walking can be perceived as an effort for engaging with the ephemeral pedagogical openings that often escape becoming known and being named. The practice of thinking AND writing AND imagemaking while walking is an invitation to look into the potentialities that reside not only within taking up each of these methods individually or pairwise, but also through inhabiting the space between them with a pedagogical emphasis.

Scholarly Significance: Throughout this inquiry, one is invited to consider the kind of complexity and entanglement that walking with AND can bring to a/r/tographical inquiry (Aoki, 1983/2004). This way of thinking with the potential of AND leads one to think with how a/r/tography puts forward a consideration for the co-existence of multiple roles that one can employ when following an inquiry, while in-tentionally holding space for other layers to come into their existence.

Author

• Marzieh Mosavarzadeh, University of British Columbia
  Presenting Author