I am a PhD candidate at the University of Exeter and a lecturer at the University of Portsmouth. My field of research is interactivity in interdisciplinary artistic practices. More specifically, I focus on durational performative scores, such as Wolf Vostell’s Yellow Pages, or Alison Knowles Identical Lunch. E.g. Yellow Pages presents the performer with a page from the New York Yellow Pages and suggests that during one month they buy the quantities of groceries indicated in the World War II lebensmittelkarte at the designated grocers. Identical Lunch instructs the performer to have the same lunch at the designated restaurant for up to a year. My investigation focuses on two aspects of performance: the body’s cycles of construction and destruction and the creation of a community on the periphery of sociality. I seek to articulate the ways in which actional, interoceptive and psychogeographic schemes generated by eating and walking intertwine to create complex patterns of individual-communal remembering-forgetting

I am in the first year of an MRes in Social and Cultural Geography at Manchester Metropolitan University. My studies so far have focused on heritage walks around Manchester, critiquing official narratives and seeking alternative routes. I am also really interested in blurring the boundaries between academia, activism and my professional life.

I founded and facilitate The LRM (Loiterers Resistance Movement) a Manchester based interdisciplinary collective of artists, activists and academics interested in psychogeography, social justice and public space. It is a not-for-profit community group which curates walks and other events which reframe the neo-liberal city as a site of subversive play and critical engagement.

The LRM seeks to unravel the myriad stories that contribute to the city and the historical, political and economic forces that shape space. Our work is also interested in emotional responses; how places make us feel and how active participation can positively transform its development. Our conception of history is rhizomatic and thus the derive is our favoured tool for exploration. The city is also a sensory experience and walking offers a direct connection to the ghosts under the pavement.

I have worked as a Community Development Officer for the past eleven years and have been employed by GMCVO (Greater Manchester Centre for Voluntary Organisation) since November 2007. My role involves providing training, consultancy, information and one-to-one support to a wide range of groups, specifically community hubs i.e. places that generate social capital.