Background
It is important to understand what elements are essential to the perceived walkability of a city if we aim to promote walking as a viable mode of transportation. In order to get an accurate idea of the things that matter to pedestrians and plan for walkable communities, we need to speak to people who already make walking a part of their everyday routine. A visual study of the pedestrian realm and the experience of walking through the eyes of others encourages a critique of a city’s streetscapes, and supports dialogue about the importance of walking as a social activity and a means of transportation.
Pedestrian City encourages people to create memory maps as a way to make connections between the places they go and interactions they experience in a city. This helps them to connect the things they’ve noticed but maybe never put together in the same mental space. Displayed as a poster presentation at Walk 21 Toronto, and as part of the concurrent Walking Life exhibit at the Gladstone Hotel, Pedestrian City began as an exercise in psychogeography to create a series of visual narratives of the Trinity Bellwoods neighbourhood in Toronto.
The goal of Pedestrian City: A Visual Narrative of Trinity Bellwoods was to gain insight into the importance of aesthetics in public space and to understand what contributes to the walkability of a city. Stories were shared, memory maps were drawn, and photographs were taken. The project showed what people notice while walking and how their perception of a familiar neighbourhood can change when asked to look at it more closely. It presented an opportunity for people to examine the neighbourhood in a different way, with a more critical lens.
Since relocating to Vancouver in May 2009, Pedestrian City has expanded as a practice and has engaged participants in three different memory mapping exercises. A preliminary green mapping project was undertaken with the Vancouver Public Space Network, a short lecture was presented at VIVO Media Arts Centre during the Olympics, and a psychogeographic Jane’s Walk took place in Cambie Village in 2010.
More recently, I have been engaged in dialogue with a local teacher about introducing Pedestrian City to high school students as an element of their sustainability curriculum, and participated in the student organized Plan-It Earth Youth Forum in April 2011. In collaboration with HASTE, I spent two sessions leading grade 5 students in a memory mapping exercise and critical discussion about their routes to school. I also presented a memory mapping workshop at Sustainable Cities, as part of their training sessions for the Youth-Led Development interns.
