For May’s Erratic we’re delighted to be teaming up with Flatpack Festival for a pilgrimage to the almighty Spaghetti Junction. Two days after Flatpack draws to a close, Gravelly Hill Interchange (to give it its formal title) will celebrate its fiftieth birthday. That hallowed day in 1972 when environment minister Peter Walker cut the ribbon was a defining moment for Birmingham’s motor city ambitions. Since then it’s fair to say that the junction has been on a bit of a journey, but whether you love it or hate it this is surely a moment worth marking.
In its time Spaghetti Junction has been mythologised as both a cathedral to the car gods and as a gateway to hell. It’s evidently a place of great significance for the city, for better and for worse, but perhaps its main resonance is as a place of confluence. Gravelly Hill is the meeting point of two motorways, several trunk roads, three canals, two rivers and a brook. It’s been a site of crossings and convergences for centuries and it was once the source of Birmingham’s drinking water.
Throughout history and across cultures, river confluences and sources have been revered as sacred sites and pilgrimage destinations. Temples have been built over them, sacred rites performed and ritual bathing observed. At 50 years of age, it seems right that Birmingham’s own super-confluence receives pilgrimage status. Pilgrimage sites are understood as places where miracles happen and visions are received. In 1973 the artist Bill Drummond had an ominous heavy metal vision while stranded beneath Spaghetti Junction in the dead of night. Since 2014 he has returned to the site at least once a year. Did he witness a miracle? Will we?
Our pilgrimage will begin in Victoria Square at 11am, Sunday 22nd May. Meet outside the entrance to the Council House – no need to book. The walk from town is about 3.5 miles and will take around 2 hours. There are frequent buses and trains back to the city centre. The terrain is mostly pavement and towpath with some uneven and sloping sections, cobbles and narrow tunnels. Those who wish to pay homage but don’t fancy the walk can join us at Salford canal junction* at 12:45pm.
Those who wish to picnic on the shores of Aston Reservoir should feel free to bring a packed lunch. Unless the weather is truly apocalyptic, the walk will go ahead. Please note the pilgrimage is one-way only. Return will be by public transport. Nearest train station is Aston. Buses back to city centre are 65 and 67 from Salford Stadium. Any queries please email: andyhowlett@hotmail.com
Salford Junction
*Salford Junction can be accessed via Lichfield Road just before Salford Circus
We named our series of public walks the “Erratics” after the glacial boulders that were deposited across South Birmingham in the ice age. For our first Erratic of 2022 we thought we’d visit some of these boulders to pay tribute. The rocks cover more ground than we can in a single walk so we imagine this will be the first of many.
Originally formed in a volcanic eruption 450-460 million years ago, the boulders later travelled on an ice sheet from the Arenig mountains in North Wales to the West Midlands: a distance of nearly 100 miles. When the ice melted around 400,000 years ago, the boulders remained and can now be found dotted around the suburbs in parks, graveyards, roadside verges and hidden in walls and buildings.
The word “erratic” comes from the Latin errare meaning to wander, roam or stray. You may think the boulders have remained stationary since the glacier retreated but no, they’re still on the move. Many have been dug up and moved for purposes of development and more still seem to have disappeared without a trace. Northfield’s “Great Stone” has to be kept in a walled enclosure to ensure it stays put.
At Walkspace we feel a great kinship with these geological flâneurs but what other examples of “roaming heritage” might we discover on our walk? What other artefacts have travelled distances great and small to wash up on the alien shores of 21st Century suburbia? Join Andy and Robson for a journey into deep time and discover your own inner-erratic along the way.
Where? When?
Meet outside the Midlands Arts Centre, Cannon Hill Park next to the little silver pyramid at 11am, Sunday 24th April. The walk will cover a distance of about 2.5 miles, lasting around 90 minutes and finishing at Selly Oak Park. The terrain will be pavement and grass with a couple of steep inclines. No need to book, just turn up. Except in the event of unceasing torrential rain, the walk will go ahead.
Any queries? Please email: andyhowlett@hotmail.com
Join local artist Daniella Turbin for a walk around the City of Wolverhampton. S09198 is the unique grid reference for the centre of the City of Wolverhampton, and throughout the duration of British Art Show 9 you are invited to explore every underpass, street, and building within this one kilometre square.
Sign up to take a walk with the artist and together map and record the city through photography and walking. This project will take place throughout the duration of British Art Show 9, and will finish with the creation of a public map of the city on the scale of 1:100.
The remaining dates are: March 2nd, 12th, 16th, 26th, 30th, and April 9th. Walks are scheduled between 9.30 to 17.30 and last approximately 90 mins, they start and finish at The Quarter Contemporary Arts Space. The walks are free but booking is essential.
This OffSite9 project has been commissioned by Creative Black Country as part of Arts Council England’s Creative People and Places scheme, and supported by Paycare.
We are delighted to announce that the first ever Walkspace short film night will be taking place this Thursday, 17th February at Artefact in Birmingham. Our collective of walking artists has ballooned since our humble beginnings in early 2020 and this event will showcase some of the moving-image work produced by the membership.
Expect hand-drawn animations, video-essays and super 8 pilgrimages, covering everything from motherhood, walking in lockdown, wild swimming, “extreme noticing” and the Cinderloo uprising of 1821. Featuring work by Adele Mary Reed, Andrew Howe, Fiona Cullinan, Daniella Turbin, Laura Babb, Andy Howlett, Rachel Henaghan and Pete Ashton.
The night kicks off at 7pm and admission is on a pay-what-you can basis. Tickets on the door.
Cover image from “Mother Anglia” by Adele Mary Reed
Two walk-based art collectives over 7,500 miles apart have been walking in parallel to see what pedestrian life is like in each other’s motor cities. Now they are sharing their stories in a new exhibition and zine, launching in both countries in February 2022.
The British Council-supported project brought Walkspace in Birmingham, UK, together with Jalan Gembira in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, for a cultural creative exchange through the act of walking. Artists in both cities explored themes such as pedestrian safety, public versus private space, gentrification/redevelopment, and the nature of walking.
What is it like to walk in a city dominated by cars and mopeds? What pedestrian portals lie off-road where drivers can’t go? Is it safe to walk alone? What lies behind the scenes?
The result is ‘Parallel Walking: Between Here and There, Between the Seen and the Unseen’ – an exhibition and zine comparing Birmingham and Yogya’s perspectives on the urban walking experience. The show runs for two weeks at Artefact Gallery in Stirchley (5-19th Feb); a mirror exhibition will appear on noticeboards at a community watch post called ‘pos kamling’ in Yogyakarta (10-15th Feb).
A schedule of public walks, walk-based film night, zine launch (12th Feb) and online discussion will accompany the show.
Walkspace is a 36-member collective in the West Midlands for artists and writers who use walking in their creative practice. It was approached in August 2021 by Jalan Gembira, a female-led walking practitioners group in Yogyakarta, Java, which translates as ‘happy road’.
Three Birmingham-based walking artists were commissioned for the project.
Andy Howlett started mapping the city’s ‘pedestrian portals’ through experimental group drifts starting underneath the Aston Expressway at Lancaster Circus
Beth Hopkins aka Bethany Kay used field recordings and composition to create ‘Ode to Chad’ – a song to Birmingham’s Chad Brook river which flows through public and private space
Fiona Cullinan – walked a series of alley, walkways and footpaths alone to create ‘Female Calculations’, a photo collage and film exploring subjective female safety algorithms.
In Yogyakarta, Jalan Gembira also invited three artists to explore Ratmakan, a riverside village that is being redeveloped and styled as a tourist area – something which feels at odds with the reality of life for those living there, and echoing gentrification impacts in the UK.
As part of the cultural exchange, Walkspace is recreating a ‘pos kamling’ watchpost and noticeboard inside Artefact Gallery. It will also encourage visitors to indulge in the Indonesian hangout culture of ‘nongkrong’ – chilling out with friends in the space – as part of the exhibition.
Lead artist for the UK project, Fiona Cullinan, said:
“Getting the chance to work with Indonesian artists was a fantastic opportunity. I’ve visited Indonesia a few times so it was interesting to go deeper and learn about the arts collective scene while working on the project. We couldn’t meet in person so we had to find new ways to show each other our streets and share our experiences of urban walking.
“Whatever challenges our cities throw at us, a lot of people have rediscovered the joy of walking in the last two years. For Walkspace, the act of creative walking goes beyond basic A to B pedestrianism. It’s like ‘walking-plus’ whether that plus is art or photography or songwriting or zine-making or meditation or something else that opens up a place in new ways.”
Jalan Gembira said:
“In reality, walking can be a way to understand the city we live in. For instance, we would not notice the changes that occurred in the city had we not directly experience it with our senses. We only see things through motor vehicles when we pass through and only get quick glimpses of the city.”
Beth Hopkins, who performs with Birmingham avant-pop band The Nature Centre and solo as Bethany Kay, said:
“Having the chance to explore a hidden corner of my city and respond to the sounds and places that the Chad Brook carves its way through was a real treat. By wading through private access areas and seeking out the brook, I felt like I was in some small way illuminating a piece of Brum that would otherwise have been hidden to public eyes and of course sharing the secret with our Indonesian colleagues.”
Jalan Gembira is a walking practitioners collective based in Yogyakarta, Java, that has been walking together since 2016. They post their walks to @jalan.gembira.
The British Council is the UK’s international organisation for cultural relations and educational opportunities. We build connections, understanding and trust between people in the UK and other countries through arts and culture, education and the English language. Last year we reached over 80 million people directly and 791 million people overall including online, and through broadcasts and publications. Founded in 1934 we are a UK charity governed by Royal Charter and a UK public body. We receive a 15 per cent core funding grant from the UK government.
The British Council’s Connections Through Culture programme has been running in the UK and East Asia for the past 16 years to foster international collaborations through arts and culture.
Artefact is an artist-led gallery, workspace and and bar in the heart of Stirchley, South Birmingham.
Walkspace is happy to announce our first funded project – an international walking arts collaboration with Jalan Gembira in Indonesia.
Jalan Gembira is a female-led walking practitioners group based in Yogyakarta, Java. The name translates as ‘happy road’ and reflects the enjoyment they have recently discovered from walking and exploring their city.
Back in August, they invited us to partner in their application to the British Council’s Connections Through Culture programme, which fosters international collaborations through arts and culture. (Thankyou to Louise at BOM for the introduction.) In September, we were delighted to hear that we had been awarded funding for our proposed project.
The full project title is ‘Parallel Walking: Between Here and There, Between the Seen and the Unseen’. Like Birmingham, Yogyakarta is a ‘motor city’ where walking is secondary to the car/motorbike/moped, where public space has been eroded by private interests, and where the infrastructure of the city can make walking feel unsafe for pedestrians. These were just a few shared themes we identified in our initial talks.
Over the next three months, we will be working and walking in parallel, gaining insights and developing our practices through showing each other our streets. We want to hold up a mirror to each other’s cities as part of our cultural exchange.
The ‘Parallel Walking’ project will run from November until the end of February. It will involve three UK artists (Beth Hopkins, Andy Howlett and Fiona Cullinan) and three Indonesian artists (Deidre Mesayu, Kurnia Yaumil Fajar and Riksa Afiaty). The mix of participants includes musicians, illustrators, collagists and walking artists. Together they will explore the identified themes through their own practices, perspectives and while walking in parallel in their cities.
We will be producing a joint zine of material from the walks and hold a simultaneous parallel exhibition – ours will be at Artefact in Stirchley, Jalan Gembira’s will be on ‘pos kamling’ – community watch posts in the neighbourhoods where they walk.
The exhibition/zine is scheduled for early February.
[Update: Event cancelled – subscribe to newsletter to stay in the loop for future events / dates. ]
With winter coming, and many of our local walking routes exhausted after several lockdowns, this Erratic led by Katy Hawkins is an opportunity to learn and practice tactics for enhancing our wandering and wellbeing.
Katy uses creative means to enliven our time spent outdoors. Tactics include:
interacting with trees
practicing texture curiosity
drawing as meditation
using language to notice more
Katy is also interested to hear methods of your own, and hopes to bring together all tactics shared and gathered as part of an illustrated booklet to be posted back out to contributors.
This walk will begin on Bournville Green, B30 2AD, at1:30pm, Saturday 20thNovember. It will last approximately 1.5 hours and will be followed by optional coffee & cake at Kafenion. The terrain will mostly be pavement, roads and grass. You are advised to bring a notepad and pen or pencil and, conditions permitting, be prepared to take your shoes off (optional).
Although the Erratic walks are free to attend, booking in advance lets us know what sorts of numbers to expect and also makes it easier for us to communicate any changes or announcements.
For this month’s Halloween-themed Erratic we invite you to walk the Stirchley Skull with us. We created the skull last year by overlaying a map of Stirchley with a spooky skull and then walking it into existence on Halloween night. We were necessarily limited to six people due to plague restrictions but this time we hope a few more of you will be able to join us.
Halloween is a time when the veil between this world and the spirit world is at its thinnest and for one night only the spirits of the departed may return to walk the earth. It’s possible that some demons may get through too so for protection we recommend walking with a lantern. A limited number of jar lanterns will be provided on the night but please feel free to bring your own if you prefer. We shall also be providing home-made soul cakes, tasty baked treats said to contain the souls of Christians trapped in Purgatory.
This gentle but chilling walk will start at 7:30pm, Sunday 31st October, outside Stirchley Library. As long as we don’t lose anyone to the spirit world along the way then it shouldn’t last longer than 90 minutes. The terrain will mostly be pavement and roads, with a bit of grass and a gravelly track. Prepare for muddy conditions and incursions from the Otherworld. It’s a circular (or skull-ular) route finishing back at the library, at which point you’re free to leave or come with us to the pub to de-spook.
Although the Erratic walks are free to attend, booking in advance lets us know what sorts of numbers to expect and also makes it easier for us to communicate any changes or announcements.
On Sunday 22nd August we launched our new series of public walks with In Search of the Brumphalos, a journey to find the heart of Birmingham. The walk was devised and lead by Walkspace members Andy Howlett and Robson and was inspired by an article in The Guardian which revealed the precise geometric centres of the UK’s 10 largest cities.
There were seventeen of us on the day and we visited various sites that might be considered the centre of the city, some obvious, some a bit more esoteric, before finishing at the mathematically calculated “real” centre which turned out to be on a residential street in Duddeston.
Inspired by Greek mythology we carried a specially made “Brumphalos” stone with us to mark the spot. The original Omphalos (meaning “navel”) is a sacred stone in Delphi, believed to have been placed there by Zeus to mark the centre of the ancient world. Our Brumphalos was created by visual arts duo Hipkiss and Graney and participants on the walk took it in turns to carry it in pairs in a concealed crate. The stone was only revealed once we reached our destination, at which point we carefully placed it on a bed of ivy behind a railing where it shall remain until it is reclaimed by the earth.
We wanted to celebrate this overlooked landmark, its construction created the Motorway system and it is vast. We spent two years meeting up in Birmingham (we live in Edinburgh & Sussex respectively) and explored the site on foot throughout the seasons. We both grew up in the Midlands and Spaghetti Junction was part of our childhoods.
What we found was two Junctions. Beneath concrete superstructure lies an older, darker junction ,a network of rail line, river, canals and foot/cycle paths intersected by feral undergrowth.
The Junction is part of a wider series examining places of significance throughout England. We are working on a project looking at the Thames Estuary and in the future we want to look at the border with Scotland.
About the Artists
Emily Inglis and Rachel Owens go on walks and make art; their creative collaboration is based on a thirty year friendship and the interplay of tensions and class differences contained within it.
Walkspace 