Walking Edmonton on May 22, 2007

Walking Edmonton
May 23, 2007


Setting out from the hotel, I turn right and begin walking through a city unfamiliar to me. Avoiding the aid of a map, I allow myself to drift through the city with no particular destination in mind. I have no expectations or desires for this walk. I tune in to the city through my feet that are just now getting in touch with it. In the two hours time I have, I give over to a wandering that privileges a sensorial experience, rather than calling upon a cognitive figuring out of space.

I am walking in the spirit of the dérive (a French concept t meaning aimless walk or drift) used by the Situationists in Paris in the 1960’s to challenge the pedestrian to experience the city in a more whimsical way. It encourages a walking led by one’s emotions and impulses towards space in planned urban environments that either ignore the emotions of its inhabitants or try to control them through design.

My own walking / drifting in Edmonton reveals my fascination and attraction to signs and voids where others may have left traces. I find myself gravitating towards graffiti on a makeshift wall along Jaspers, public signage laid out on the periphery of Sir Winston Churchill Square warning pedestrians not to use skateboards, rollerblades, or bikes, and blank poster frames, and walls that have been tagged or scribbled upon. I spot a billboard poster that is starting to droop, revealing its monochrome wooden board underneath. What lies under the surface and made visible to me, as well as what gets written over is the draw during my walk. These layers of the city feel both melancholic and slightly humorous; the absurd quiet of the city opens up these visual oddities to me over and over.

As part of my walk, I drift into two independent bookstores and back out onto the street. I sit down at a park bench to take notes of the geography I am creating through the city. Pondering notions of tracings, I look down and see a small yellow square drawn in chalk next to my feet. This mark is a remnant of the performances of Visualeyez colleague, Emma Waltraud-Howes. I move to place my feet in the square, filling it in and overlapping with another’s marking of place in the various yet somewhat needy spaces of this city.