Projects

2018 - The Walking Body

THE WALKING BODY

Ongoing since October 2018

The Walking Body is an ongoing artistic research project exploring walking as a creative and transformative practice.

Through action research and practice-based methodologies, the project investigates how artistic walking practices generate new forms of community engagement, inclusive art-making, pedagogical innovation, and ecological awareness in public space contexts.

Since 2018, the project has developed through annual international gatherings in Guimarães, Portugal, each exploring distinct thematic dimensions: from walking as embodied artistic practice (2018-2020), to narrative and cartographic investigations (2022), community formation (2023), more-than-human ecologies (2024), communities in transformation (2025), and freedom (2026).

This evolving trajectory demonstrates the project’s commitment to sustained artistic inquiry and deepening understanding of walking’s social and ecological potential.

The project generates collaborative artistic artifacts, performances, installations, ephemeral works, created through participatory processes with invited artists and communities. Research outputs emerge across multiple formats, artistic artifacts, critical documentation, and academic contributions. The 2020 International conference “Drifting Bodies / Fluent Spaces” served as a key milestone in articulating these multifaceted approaches, bringing together artistic and theoretical investigations on walking, embodiment, and public space. This hybrid methodology continues to shape the project’s ongoing development, with each annual gathering of The Walking Body producing new collaborative artifacts, reflections, and contributions.
Currently integrated within WALC – Walking Arts and Local Communities (2024-2027), an co-funded EU Creative Europe project, The Walking Body is also supported by Lab2PT (FCT), Guimarães City Council (IMPACTA Programme), and operates within the global walk-listen-create network.
The project aims to continue as an artistic initiative and ongoing research, addressing contemporary challenges relating to social fragmentation, the ecological crisis and participatory cultural practice.