7 Walks is a transversal project that aims to contextualize local practices of ownership in a broader social, legal and political reading. With walking as its performative methodology, 7 Walks consists of site-specific instalments that connect the ecology of the arts with a natural commons – water. 7 Walks is a site-specific project. It is strongly anchored in different local situations: the spa towns that sprang up throughout Europe, and their surrounding ‘therapeutic’ landscapes. The ambition of this research trajectory however is to contextualize local practices of ownership in a broader social, legal and political reading. This will become manifest in the different instalments 7 Walks intends to generate in a variety of places and contexts. The different public installments that took place will be distributed further in formats such as conferences, publications, exhibitions, performances…
7 Walks connects the ecology of the arts with a natural commons: water. The project focuses on water sources as specific case studies and develops ‘walking’ as a performative methodology. Walking being part of the cure next to drinking water, 7 Walks treads in the footsteps of historical walkers. These past visitors to spa towns are selected on the basis of their often outspoken ideas on ownership. The project is an invitation to a wide audience, and to experts from different disciplines to re-enact these historical walks to water sources together. Starting from a specific point in the history of a site, the walks aim to trigger a true ‘clashing of minds’ on a variety of questions related to ownership.
Walking has an extensive philosophical, literary and artistic history. By physically traversing the property structures that are being discussed, it allows for the examination of apparently fixed ‘legal’ ideas. Walking generates a sensory experience while, at the same time, creating a new shared space. This can actively open the way to a radical space of imagination which puts artists, experts and participants on an equal footing. As a research method, it generates ‘situated knowledge’ and creates a context in which the public is not merely a participant, but also a co-author. This, in turn, allows for the development of new ideas about living and ownership – which are also forms of property. After the walks, all dialogues are discussed collectively, structured, and made visible through concept mapping. Concept mapping is used as a means to abstract the conversations. All concepts are negotiated and based on a joint oral report of the walk, while the maps are co-created by participants in a non-hierarchical way. Different maps can link key concepts from different conversations throughout the various 7 Walks instalments. The conversations that will take place during the walks are recorded on the mobile phones of participants. The continuous presence of the smartphone in our pockets has drastically changed the experience of hiking. Google and other apps not only generate a constant flow of information, but also introduce an additional level of surveillance: our data and whereabouts are continuously tracked, collected and offered for sale by big tech companies. The property relations in question therefore not only concern the water sources and the land on which 7 Walks operates, but also the data generated by the walks.