During the early modern period, to go for a walk was a recreational activity, but it was also to literally re-create oneself. Heating the body up enabled the evacuation of superfluous humours, with profound physiological effects on the Renaissance individual. Elaine McKay argues that according to early modern thought:

“recreation refocuses the mind and creates a sense of ease and wellbeing […] people undergo a physical, mental or spiritual renewal which not only incorporates a reconstitution of health, but also offers opportunities to regenerate, or recreate, a sense of themselves as individual and unique personalities.” (2008, p61)

As McKay’s research shows walking was both an activity, and also “the regeneration that such an activity would bring” (p64). This insight lies behind the project ‘Walking and Re-Creation’. This project developed the ideas and methodologies initiated during an Ideas Exchange.

What did the project involve? 

The research team considered walking to be a form of exercise and cultural performance that is socially conditioned, unites health-based, political, and creative perspectives on walking, and wanted to ensure the regenerative benefits of walking can be accessible to all Bristolians. The project was grounded in a shared concern across the worlds of public health, performance, and activism that walking and outdoor physical activity is a form of ‘ecotherapy’, which can help people to live well in a connected and healthy way, alleviating the stresses of modern life and creating communities.

The team sought to continue to address the historical and contemporary inequity of walking investigated during the Ideas Exchange: developing ways to counter the prohibitions placed upon walking, using walking itself to resist the erasure of ground-level histories in favour of top-down narratives, and continuing to assess the impact of cultural identity upon walking access, specifically in relation to gender and race. This project enabled the team to test the ideas that were developed within their ideas exchange and to create concrete outputs as well as feasibility studies for future work.

Through three walks, the research team disseminated walking as a form of re-creation as well as recreation: of history, self, environment, community and city. These three walks were:

• A guided comic walk exploring the unofficial histories of Bristol as part of Walkfest 2022 that perambulated overlooked, unknown sites. It excavated stories nevertheless central to the city and its inhabitants, resisting the routes inscribed by authorised history and writing the city anew.
• ‘Walking with Toddlers’ a comedy audio walk. While children may frustrate efforts to walk in a healthy way, they also encourage us to engage mindfully with our environments; to walk in a way guided by process rather than destination.
• With Steppin Sistas the research team created a community of 30 women who use walking to occupy spaces from which they are excluded. A feasibility study was conducted using an exploratory night walk in Bristol.

Who are the team and what do they bring?

• Suzanne Audrey’s (Public Health, University of Bristol) is an activist and researcher with an interest in local democracy. She was a community development worker for 20 years in socio-economically disadvantaged areas of Bristol and Glasgow, before becoming a public health academic focussing on health inequalities. She continues to be active in neighbourhood and city-wide voluntary organisations in Bristol.
• Angie Belcher (Facilitator and stand-up comedian) is an award-winning facilitator, coach, and stand-up comedian who combines her love of creativity and personal development to help to inspire people to achieve their true potential. As a facilitator Angie trains, supports, and encourages people to feel comfortable in being confident, passionate, and authentic. She has experience in writing and performing guided walks in order to address inequalities.
• Sophie Brown and Ruth Pitter (Steppin Sistas) are part of an all-black, female Bristol hiking group who are changing perceptions of walking at a grass-roots level, and asserting the ability to occupy public space as a black woman. Not only have Steppin Sistas benefitted from positive mental health effects, group walking has enabled collective safety, wellbeing and sisterhood – especially as black women are not generally expected to be ‘seen’ walking.
• Jan Connett (Bristol Health Partners) Audrey and Connett’s research as public health experts and connections to Bristol walking organisations therefore enable the project to evidence the continued impacts that affect the inclusivity of walking today, as well as providing routes to promote our outputs.
• Eleanor Rycroft (Theatre Studies, University of Bristol) researches into the early modern staging of walking historicises the inquiry, specifically how frameworks of class, gender, ability, and access have conditioned who has the right to walk, when and where.

What were the results?

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. During this walk a soundscape was produced to be a “a transparent, albeit edited, record of the event”. The soundscape ‘Walking and Re-Creation: A Walk Through Clifton Downs at Midnight’ was produced with @alicebodymusic and @brisStepSista and was shortlisted for the Sound Walk September award 2022.

The ‘Walking with Toddlers’ comic audio play 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

Moreover, Angie Belcher took the Bristol Comedy History Walk pilot forward to receive funding from Bristol City Council’s ‘City Centre Culture and Recover’ for its next stage.