Opening eyes and getting closer to the matters of fact is an important object of research. Yet, most scholarly knowledge is produced and discussed in labs, libraries, study chambers and seminar rooms, and thus disconnected from the world around us. One way of countering this tendency are ‘walking seminars’ in which researchers get out of the study rooms and explore nature and the society around us. The bodily labour involved in walking can open the eyes for new insights – how dependent humanity is on basic things such as food and shelter, and how scholarly knowledge and technology may betray us when facing the challenge of the Anthropocene.
In 2018, Christian Ernsten (AMC) co-edited a 56-page edited volume exploring walking as an embodied methodology. The newspaper-style publication published by ON AIR (Amsterdam University of the Arts) includes essays, diary entries, poems, photographs and other art works by scholars, writers, designers, artists, students and others who worked together in an interdisciplinary manner. The publication is organized according to themes such as “landscape as palimpsest”, “reasoning, emotioning, dreaming” and “Anthropocene moments”. The experimental material that the publication consists of was compiled by Ernsten in collaboration with archaeologist Nick Shepherd and photographer Dirk-Jan Visser, and is the result of research walks in South Africa, the Netherlands and Germany. Building on these experiences, Ernsten will contribute to “Nieuw Gronings Peil”, four radio documentaries broadcasted by the VPRO. They deal with the question how man is transforming the landscape and its culture in and around Groningen – looking at issues such as rising sea levels, man-made earthquakes, and the fragility of cultural heritage around us. Listeners are invited to travel along and make their own experiences.