S. E. Overall

In Heavy Time psychogeographer Sonia Overall takes to the old pilgrim roads, navigating a route from Canterbury to Walsingham via London and her home town of Ely. Vivid in her evocation of a landscape of ancient chapels, ruined farms and suburban follies, Overall's secular pilgrimage elevates the ordinary, collecting roadside objects -- feathers, a bingo card, a worn penny -- as relics. Facing injury and interruption, she takes the path of the lone woman walker, seeking out 'thin places' where past and present collide, and where new ways of living might begin. 'It is a talisman of a book. Heavy Time doesn't just describe a pilgrimage, it becomes one, for both writer and reader. It is an invitation to resist 'busyness', to think of ourselves as explorers, to seek out 'the everyday divine'. It has sent me out looking for 'thin places: pockets in the landscape where the membrane is so tightly stretched that other worlds might shine through.' Beautiful and essential.' - Helen Mort.

This article is based on the paper I gave at Place-Based Arts: Brighton Writes on 29 May 2015. Walking allows for an immersive experience of place. As the tradition of the flâneur, the interventions of Situationists and the practice of contemporary Walking Artists demonstrate, walking and creativity share a manifest connection. In this article I present my use of alternative walking practices and discuss how these can be used to generate new creative work. Inspired by psychogeographical methods, I have developed a series of exercises, which I use to create text and which I employ as Learning and Teaching tools with writing students. These include: • Liberties – using the dérive to break convention and explore place afresh • Constraints – using randomly generated directions to steer experience and facilitate discoveries • Subverting mapping and signage – using superimposed mapping and reinterpreting signage in search of synchronicity • Gathering materials – using alternative walks to observe and record materials including found text, sound and image. This article draws on my own practice-based research and recent case studies using these methods.

By their nature, heritage sites often require constraints and controls on pedestrian access. Yet the freedoms of walking – and the attendant pleasures of pausing, ruminating, peering, questioning, imagining and narrating – are vital to the public experience of these sites. In this paper I will discuss how psychogeographical approaches, particularly those embraced by practitioners of counter tourism, can be used to ameliorate issues of access and develop imaginative responses to physical and less tangible heritage. Since 2015 I have been developing the use of creative and attentive walking practices at heritage sites from the perspective of a psychogeographer and curious visitor, rather than a member of the archaeological community. This includes work with English Heritage at sites in East Kent, an HLF-funded project ‘Walking Heritage’, and ‘O what we ben! And what we come to!’, an interactive walking project mapping post-apocalyptic literary landscapes onto medieval and Roman sites in Canterbury. Drawing on these case studies, I will discuss how walking with psychogeographical attitude can be encouraged, creating playful experiences and an enriched engagement with heritage places and spaces.