Walking and Re-Creation is a collaboration between University of Bristol researchers, public health experts, comedians and performers, and activists, led by Eleanor Rycroft of the Department of Theatre. The project responds to our belief that social inequalities and health inequalities are linked – and uses a historical perspective on the act of walking to address the unequal access to pedestrianism in our own moment. 
 
On 23rd July 2022, Bristol Steppin Sistas and University of Bristol team members walked through Clifton Downs at midnight. This group of 17 women - primarily women of colour - walked a significant area for histories of gender, sexuality and race in the city. While women are largely debarred from walking at night, we took a route that is historically associated with sex-work, and so were connected to a lineage of night-walking women.  
 
Clifton Downs is also contested land in terms of local history - owned by Bristolians according to an Act of 1861 but also by the Society for Merchant Venturers, an organisation central to Bristol's role is the slave trade. Its occupation by women of colour was therefore a politically significant act.  
  
Through walking this fractured space, we reclaimed it. Walking at night - at the witching hour - meant that we confronted the exclusions which obstruct our free movement as pedestrians through the world, as the interviews with women on the soundscape make clear. For many, this was both a triggering and/or cathartic experience. At times, stories tumbled from us which we would prefer not to have to live with and not to have to tell.  
  
The soundscape is intended to be a transparent, albeit edited, record of the event, and at points the sound quality suffers a little because of rain. At 10.54, incidentally, you can hear, very faintly, the sound of a car horn, and then a man shouting at 10.56. While we were largely left alone during our walk, it is interesting that our unusual act could not be left completely free of comment and disruption. Whether the beep was one of criticism or solidarity we will never know. 
  
Many thanks to Alice Boyd, our sound recordist and designer, who also conducted the interviews. Also to Sophie Brown and Ruth Pitter of Bristol Steppin Sistas. We hope that you enjoy the sound of women collectively walking by night.

Image: Bristol from above: The Downs & Black Boy Hill, 1930s, BRO 44819/3/177 ‘Know Your Place’ website accessed 26/8/22

Walking and Re-Creation: A Walk Through Clifton Downs at Midnight

'Walking with Toddlers' is a comic audio play about the joys and frustrations of going for a walk with a pre-schooler as a mother, co-written and co-produced by Angie Belcher (writer, director, comedian, and facilitator) and Eleanor Rycroft (Senior Lecturer in Theatre and gender historian).  It uses the juxtaposition of an idealised walk imagined via 'Minarra's Mindful Mummies Podcast' and the reality of walking with a toddler, to consider how care-giving can provide both obstructions and opportunities when trying to get from A to B.

Steff - Alex Tregear 
Minarra - Trish Ferguson-Jay
Billy - Sebi Winfield
Mrs Mabel - Eleanor Rycroft
Male drivers - Tim Wilderspin

Written and Produced by Angie Belcher and Eleanor Rycroft
Directed by Angie Belcher
Sound Design by Tim Wilderspin
Original music by Patrick Farrell
Chaperone Tori Winfield

Recorded at Legacy Studio, Bristol
With many thanks to the Brigstow Institute and the Division of Research, Enterprise and Innovation at the University of Bristol for their support of this project.



Photo credit: Kelli McClintock on Unsplash

Walking and Re-Creation: A Walk Through Clifton Downs at Midnight

Walking and Re-Creation

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