Walking Assembly
Over the last 2 years I worked with a great team consisting of Geert Vermeere, Clara Gari Pau Cata and Luce Choules on the Walking Assembly, a gathering that brought together artists, researchers and walkers to explore place through the shared act of walking. Set along the Muga River in Catalonia, the Assembly unfolded as a series of walks, conversations and situated encounters, guided by the river as both route and organising principle.
Working collaboratively with an international team, my role focused on shaping the curatorial framework, holding the conceptual thread, and contributing to the design of the walking programme.
Drawing on Patrick Geddes’ idea of the valley section, we approached the river as a living cross-section of landscape, culture and livelihood — moving from source to sea while attending to the relationships between people, terrain and time.
Rather than a conference in the conventional sense, the Walking Assembly functioned as a temporary field of practice. Walking became method: a way of thinking, sensing and learning together. The programme combined longer-distance walks with slower, attentive modes of engagement, creating space for both embodied reflection and shared enquiry.
The Assembly foregrounded water as a connective force — shaping not only the landscape but also the ways in which we gather, exchange and move forward together.
Beyond the organisational preparation the on-site time was spent through researching the Muga River and the running of one of the four groups.
MUGA VALLEY SECTION RESEARCH
An 80k walk along the Muga Valley from San Bartolomeu convent in the Pyrenees to its mouth in the Mediterranean Sea.
PERSONAL PILGRIMAGE WORKSHOP
Combining walking, conversation, and the slow practice of embroidery, participants were invited to experience the Muga river as both a living body and a record of time – a witness to ancient shifts and modern pressures. We wondered how walking can become a personal pilgrimage that engages not only with tourism and culture but also with the deep time of the Earth itself.
In recent years, walking has become a global trend – often framed by the tourism industry as a path to health, discovery, or authenticity. Yet each path we tread carries older stories: of stone and soil, erosion and renewal, human passage and natural resilience.
Through two days of walking and a final day of craft and reflection, this workshop invited participants to look closely at the Muga as both a contemporary walking route and a geological narrative written over millions of years. With my focus on personal pilgrimage’s insights into the deep history of the landscape, we explored how tourism, environment, and time intertwine – and how we might walk more attentively within that continuum.
