ISSUE 1: THE WALKING CITY
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Cover illustration by TESS LOCKEY (2019) www.tesslockey.com
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SONDER: The realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own—an epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground, with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that you’ll never know existed, in which you might appear only once, as an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of traffic passing on the highway, as a lighted window at dusk -Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows
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“One of the basic situationist practices is the dérive,(1) a technique of rapid passage through varied ambiences. Dérives involve playful-constructive behavior and awareness of psychogeographical effects, and are thus quite different from the classic notions of a journey or a stroll.”
EDITOR’s FOREWARD This project was inspired by a series of days-nights out and about in London. In what felt like a consistent re-imagining of the playful potential of urban spaces, we wanted to share our conception of how space can be radically reconfigured and experienced. We also desired to gather a polyphony of thoughts on matters pertaining to the urban realm. Urban living presents so much potential for personal and communal growth, for intellectual and emotional curiosities and perplexities to unravel, for identities to be shaped, to resist and to challenge power structures and norms. We value the importance and power of diversity, of human experience, connection and storytelling. We therefore aim to platform people from a wide variety of backgrounds and a large range of modes of expression. Emerging or established writers and artists are all welcome to submit to the zine. Each issue will approach the city from a different lens so that we can explore the pieces of the puzzle in detail, to try and momentarily grasp the rhythms of an ever changing world. In our first issue we wanted to focus on walking (or moving) around the city. Both of us identify as flaneurs/euses and walking is the main mode of experiencing the city and growing as a person in it. Walking as an act or practice presents the walker with a myriad of possibilities for encounters with humans and non-humans. It creates a time and space where observations can translate into thoughts that resist, making it by its very nature subversive to the corrosive accelerated and mindless pace of the capitalist city. We are happy to showcase the work of people from across the world, helping us better understand each other’s stories and modes of urban existence. Thank you to everyone who created and submitted something for this issue! We hope that the launch of SONDER is the beginning of a learning journey for us and the readers and an inspiration for everyone to act upon their zeals and curiosities. There is beauty everywhere but there is even more untapped beauty in our minds that is idly waiting to be shared. Yours playfully,
Angelos Angelidis and Talia Clarick 5
Table of Contents
1 London, UK 2 New York City, USA 3 New York City, USA 4 Doha, QA 5 San Francisco, USA 6 London, UK 7 Paris, FR 8 Cologne, GE 9 London, UK 10 Athens, GR
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1 The Street: a User’s Guide - The Demolition Project. 2 Prospect Lefferts Gardens - Venus Dulani 3 Manhole Tour - Abigail Borah 4 The Islamic Urban Form: Alleyways and Walkability AbdulRahman AlMana
5 San Fran Characters - Ben Wichman 6 Diary of a spinning top - Angelos Angelidis, Talia Clarick (drawing)
7 Les Passantes - A Pending Disaproval Publication 8 A corporate job - Levy Rayka 9 Bread walk - Seth Randell Goddard 10 Reflections of an 89 year old walker - Panos Alexopoulos
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THE STREET: A USER’S GUIDE Suggestions for ways to engage with the street and related spaces.
The Demolition Project
*You can repeat any of these instructions or all of them, as many times as you like.*
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SITE A. | CAR PARK The car park is designed for cars, not people Find somewhere to stand out of the way of the cars – somewhere you won’t get run over • under a tree • or beside the ticket machines • or next to a phone box Stand here for as long as you like Feel your feet on the ground Feel the weight of your body connected to the ground Feel the space around yourself Can you feel the vibrations beneath your feet as the cars pass by? Look up to the sky – what colour is it? Blue? Grey? Smudged with clouds? Relax your eyes until the sky is a blur. Breathe. Looking at the sky is a way to clean your eyes of all the mess and clutter and hardness, all the sharp edges of the city. You can do it at any time, whenever you want to relax your eyes. Listen. What can you hear? Can you hear where the traffic is?
You can stop looking at any time and feel the space around yourself. Feel your feet on the ground. Feel the weight of your body connected to the ground SITE B. | MARKET On Saturday the market is full of noises. Let yourself be overwhelmed by voices – let them wash over you and past you. Swim in the sounds of this place. As you walk, try to look at the face of every person you pass. If you saw those faces in an identity parade, could you remember them? Does it change the way you walk? Are you slower, more careful? Or do you walk quickly to get through this ordeal, or are you too busy looking at faces to notice your own body? If someone looks at you, do you smile? If someone smiles at you, what do you do? Stop whenever you like. Can you see something that you’d like to wear – something for sale on any of the stalls? Or maybe something you would hate to wear, something weird or ugly?
Look around you.
If you find something, you could touch it – the stallholder won’t mind. How does it feel? Or imagine touching it, holding it up against yourself, putting it on.
Notice how the cars negotiate their pathways through the car park, or in the street.
If you were wearing this piece of clothing, how would it change the way you move?
How they move; how they avoid touching – stop, start, speed up, slow down
Walk as if you are wearing it.
Can you hear the wind in the trees?
You can stop looking at any time – look up to the sky or close your eyes. You can stop looking at any time and listen to the sounds around you.
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Stop whenever you like. Repeat whenever you like. If you hear music, dance to it. Or dance in your imagination – a secret dance just for yourself.
As you walk, try to look into the distance. Try not to look at anything on the stalls, or anyone. Use your peripheral vision, keep your eyes focused on the distance. Does it change the way you walk? Can you negotiate the crowd without looking at anyone directly? Are you faster, more businesslike? Do you walk slowly and carefully? Do you feel detached from the world around you or do you feel as if the horizon is pulling you towards it? SITE C. | PAVEMENT
Look for a surface to sit or lie or lean on. A wall / a fence / a lamppost / a bollard? Let your skin meet the surface gently, feel its texture. Press against the surface with some part of your body – fingers, arm, leg, foot, torso – feel how much it resists you. Give your weight to the surface – feel how it supports you
You are walking along a pavement. It could be any pavement of any street in a city. It is an unremarkable pavement.
Stop whenever you want.
Which side of the road are you walking on?
How has giving your weight to a surface changed the way you move down the street?
How did you decide which side of the road to walk on? Cross the road. Does it feel different on this side? Cross the road again if you were happier on the first side you chose. Feel the weight of your feet on this pavement that you have chosen to walk on. Give the weight of your body to the pavement.
Keep walking.
Do you feel more friendly towards the pavement, or the trees, or the lampposts, or the fence, now that you know they support you? If you want, find somewhere else to lean or lie or sit and repeat. Repeat as many times as it takes you to make friends with this street. Look down at the pavement. How many cracks does it have?
Feel the space around you. Float your weight out into that space.
Are you walking on the cracks or avoiding them?
Are you swinging your arms as you walk? Notice your body. What is the length of your steps? What is the rhythm? Are you moving your arms as you walk? How are you moving them? What is it about this street that makes you want to swing your arms like this? If you were on the other side of the road, would you swing your arms differently?
Imagine you are an ant, or a beetle. How would the pavement look to you? Each crack would be a canyon. Every weed would be like a tree. A human foot would be a catastrophe.
Is there anywhere in this street where you could sit down? Is there anywhere in this street where you could lie down? Is there anything in this street you can lean on?
Imagine you are a beetle, or an ant. How would you move if you could spread your weight across six legs, if you were co-ordinating six feet instead of two? Imagine how long it would take you to walk across this paving stone.
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If you like, you could try to walk like an ant. Or you could try to see like an ant, taking in every detail of the world with your compound eyes. Stop whenever you like. Or imagine you have X-ray vision. Look through the pavement and into the earth below. Where are the tree roots? Where are the spaces made by worms, the flakes of soil turned and compressed into tunnel walls? Where are the gas pipes, the water pipes, the electricity cables? Can you feel the energy trapped and channelled beneath you, deep underground? SITE D. | PARK Enter the park. Here, loitering is forbidden. What will happen if you loiter?
You could take your shoes off and feel the texture of the ground with the soles of your feet. Or you could feel the surface of the trees with the palm of your hand. Your purpose will be to touch or walk on as many different surfaces as you can find. Hard surfaces. Smooth surfaces. Soft surfaces. Rough surfaces. Sharp and spiky surfaces. Furry, fluffy textures you can run your hands through. Warm things, or cold things, or wet things, or sticky things.
Try it.
Doing this task will make you look far less suspicious than simply loitering without a purpose.
What does loitering feel like?
Or will it?
Is it different from walking, or standing, or sitting on a bench?
Do you feel suspicious?
Loitering means standing or walking around without any particular purpose, spending time idly. How does it change your body if you know that you are loitering, if you know that you are breaking the rules? Maybe nothing is different on the surface, maybe the change is deep inside you. Look around – who is watching you, who will notice if you dare to loiter? If you want to stop loitering, you must give yourself a purpose. 12
Enjoy that feeling. Let go of it. Let it float away. Look up at the sky. Relax your eyes. How far can you walk while you’re looking at the sky? How far can you walk with your eyes closed?
SITE E. | ESTATE On a housing estate, there are rules. Rules for people who live here and rules to keep out strangers. Ball games are not allowed here.
A horror film or a romantic comedy? A gritty drama or a glittering fantasy? A musical, a film noir, a superhero movie? In this film, which is being made on the CCTV cameras on this housing estate, you are the central character. Who is this character you’re playing?
This is a shame, because you have brought a ball. It’s invisible and entirely imaginary, but you want to play with it.
Do they look like you?
How big is it? Is it the size of a table tennis ball or a cricket ball or a football or a giant inflatable gym ball?
Is this character confident or self-conscious? Is their body – your body – relaxed and fluid, or stiff and awkward? Catlike and elegant? Tense with anger? Bowed with grief? Or happy and open?
You could simply feel the weight of it in your hand. Or you could bounce it or throw it or kick it or roll on it. What sort of game would you like to play? There are spectators at your game. They are watching you on CCTV. On a housing estate, CCTV cameras are everywhere How many can you spot? Is there anywhere where you cannot be seen by CCTV cameras? Why not use the cameras to make a film? Imagine you are a character in a film as you walk between the cameras. How would the shots be framed? How long would each shot last? Are you being filmed in close up – or in a wide shot that shows you as a tiny figure beneath towering buildings?
How do they stand? How do they walk?
Are they – are you – avoiding the cameras or looking into the cameras? Are you ready for your close-up? Find a camera you can get close to, and perform for that camera. This story – being filmed on the CCTV cameras on this housing estate – will unfold like a dream. In years to come it will be screened at festivals and showcased in art galleries, academics will write books about it and people will have drunken arguments in bars about whether you exist or do not exist, or whether the film is set in a parallel reality, or whether they are actually living in a parallel reality and the film is really a fragment of dark matter from another universe. If you want to shoot another take, repeat your movements. If you don’t want to star in this film, look for somewhere to hide from the cameras.
What sort of film are you in?
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SITE F. | ROAD
How has the street changed?
There are roads in the city, like this one, where lives go on behind closed doors.
The people who spend most time walking backwards are camera operators.
Behind blinds or curtains that hide a series of private worlds.
Watch the world move away from you as you walk.
You are walking past them, looking for clues.
Imagine you are holding a camera. As you walk backwards, you can fit more and more of the world into the frame of your shot.
Don’t stare in through windows – use your peripheral vision to pick up hints, movements, twitches. Listen for signs of life – music, a clatter of footsteps, the banging of doors. Can you detect cooking smells, or smoke, or any other fragrances as you pass the houses? Count your steps as you go. Count up to 100. Or 200. Be aware of your peripheral vision. Be aware of the sounds around you. Be aware of lives going on behind the closed doors that you pass. Look at the pavement ahead as you walk. Or look up at the sky. Or look at your feet. Stop whenever you like. When you stop, retrace your steps by walking backwards.
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You are probably walking more slowly than you did before, when you were walking forwards. The road has become longer than it was the first time you walked down it.
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Prospect Lefferts Gardens Lynch Map
Venus Dulani *Mental teleportation to a NYC neighbourhood. The map is not the territory*
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NEW YORK
Nowadays, Google maps can give you a pretty accurate description of any area in the world, but when you live in a city, in a particular neighbourhood, on a specific street, you probably have a very different perception of what the area is like than what Google maps tells you it’s like. I live in a vibrant Caribbean neighbourhood in Brooklyn, and unfortunately like the rest of the borough, it is rapidly gentrifying. What Google maps probably does not know about my neighbourhood though, is that opposite my apartment building, there is a church, and every night in front of that church you can find cheerful middle-aged men sitting on lawn chairs, talking and playing Caribbean music on full blast. Google also probably doesn’t know that there is this particular corner with a fire hydrant, that everyone uses to flood the streets with cold water when the weather is just way too hot. At a nearby corner, you will find a daily line for fresh coconuts in front of a mini fruit stall. While on most days a site reserved for buses and cars, my street is also regularly transformed into a space for cultural parades or state senator events. It’s generally very difficult for maps to capture the essence and daily experience of any neighbourhood. The Lynch map, introduced by urban theorist Kevin – oh you guessed it – Lynch, is in some ways closer to depicting everyday realities. His book, The Image of the City, published in 1960, is the outcome of a five-year study of Boston, Jersey City, and Los Angeles on how observers take in information of the city, and use it to make mental maps. Lynch’s conclusion was that people formed mental maps of their surroundings consisting of five basic elements: paths, edges, districts, nodes and landmarks. After nearly six months of walking around, the map above, is a Lynch map of what I think mytiny grid-like neighbourhood, Prospect Lefferts Garden, looks like. Below are some key observations based on the five elements: Paths channel along where the observer travels. They can be streets, walkaways, transit lines, canals, or railroads. As a mode for transport, they usually set the backdrop for people’s mental maps. For the mental image of my neighbourhood, it consisted not just of the streets I use most often, but also the adjacent streets that I notice when walking. Edges are real or perceived boundaries that distinguish one area from another. They are usually elements that break continuity and as a result are not considered as paths by the observer. These can be walls, buildings, rivers, overpasses etc. My neighbourhood has the pleasure of being bound by Prospect Park – the superior Central Park, and a hospital on the other side. Districts are medium-to-large sections of a neighbourhood/city, considered to have a twodimensional aspect to them, which the observer mentally enters “inside of” and which are recognizable of having some common identifying character. This is truly the most interesting and surprising aspect of my area – it is genuinely mind-boggling. Walking from the east end of the neighbourhood, to the west end towards Prospect Park, you can literally identify class and race differences, street by street, leading me to decide that my neighbourhood consists of four parallel 19
districts. Starting from the east, you are surrounded by heavily Caribbean, relatively cheap and dense apartments, but by the time you get to the third district, you are surrounded by visibly large and expensive houses. For someone like me, who grew up in Hong Kong, these houses look like mansions, and to be honest considering New York prices, it is probably equivalent tobuying a mansion elsewhere. The fourth district as expected, due to its proximity to the park and an essential subway station, returns to a pricey apartment-style ambience, with a much more diverse and gentrified look. It is astonishing to me that all of this distinct architecture, diversity, class can exist in barely four streets. Nodes are strategic spots or points in a city into which an observer can enter, and which are the intensive foci to and from which they are travelling. They can be places of convergence, moments of shift or breaks where the mode of transport changes. For me, it was the three stations, large intersections, and a recently discovered historic district. Landmarks are another type of reference point, but in this case the observer cannot enter them – they are external. They are usually rather simple physical objects, such as a building, sign, store, or mountain. Like easily pointed out in Google maps, they can be schools, churches, and libraries, but what really drew me to my landmarks were the lived experiences attached to them. The frequently misused fire hydrant, men in lawn chairs, coconut stall, aroma of Allan’s Bakery, and hourly chimes of the church next door are just some of the points that helped me in forming my mental map. Another thing to notice is that landmarks are not necessarily unchanging. Going into this unwanted winter, many of these landmarks have become merely past memories as new landmarks take their place in my mind. My mental perception of this neighbourhood may be similar or very different from another resident or visitor’s perception. To some extent, it certainly feels unlike what Prospect Lefferts Garden’s official administrative boundaries are stated to be. What makes the Lynch map unique is its ability to incorporate an observer’s lived experiences. I highly recommend reflecting on and
NEW YORK
visualizing your own neighbourhood – the result may surprise you.
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MANHOLE TOUR
Avigail Borah
NEW YORK
*Take a little dip into a little urban memorial to working class history*
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The Islamic Urban Form
Alleyways and Walkability
AbdulRahman AlMana
*‘The pedestrian experience in Islamic cities [...] presents a fascinating insight into the ways in which culture and faith can shape and mold urban forms.’*
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The mosque acted as the prime public building, it not only functioned as a place of worship but provided social and political functions. Mosques were embedded in central markets and were typically modest (unless sponsored and commissioned by royalty). This only further pushed the mosque towards the public realm, along with the markets where all commercial activities occurred. Islamic cities compartmentalize their different spaces between the public and private spheres allow for a clear differentiation between the two. Surrounding the markets are a series and system of sprawling dead-end alleyways that would connect a cluster of courtyard houses. Islam qualifies the private sphere of the family as sacred, and therefore forbidden to strangers. This meant that residences had to be completely insular. These residential units are protected from public life and function as inward-oriented autonomous units. Within these courtyards were a series of houses or structures housing multiple nuclear families to compose the tribe or clan, which would open up into a courtyard or garden where members of the family
DOHA
Architecture is the haven where man’s spirit, soul, and body find refuge and shelter, this quote from the Andalusian judge, Ibn Abdun, perfectly illustrates the way in which architecture and our urban form is a natural expression of our spiritual values and beliefs. Islam and the urban form presents an incredibly interesting relationship to explore because Islam is not only a religion but a phenomenon that influenced every field. The arts, literature, science, maths, and most notably architecture saw massive advances during the height of the Islamic empire. Islam is an innately urban religion, its spiritual experience is integrally linked to the urban form. The religion has its roots in urban environments and during the Islamic expansion, it birthed and altered cities forever. It provided a comprehensive and integrated cultural system that embeds religious practice into daily life, therefore becoming not only a spiritual experience but a social one as well. The behavioral matrix Islam instructs necessitated architectural structures that allow for these social and religious practices. The pedestrian experience in Islamic cities, characterized by narrow alleyways and insular residential clusters, presents a fascinating insight into the ways in which culture and faith can shape and mold urban forms. The Arab-Islamic city is entirely unique from other urban forms. Traditional and historic Islamic cities often lack monuments such as freestanding religious or public institutions accompanied by large open squares and plazas. The urban form and the architectural fabric is long, uninterrupted, and continuous. Islamic cities from afar tend to look uniform and homogenous but on the pedestrian level, traditional Islamic structures and buildings are highly differentiated. Islamic cities lacked formal institutions, which meant that there was a clear absence in outstanding government buildings. Any and all institutional functions were fulfilled by a Jami’, Friday Mosque.
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could gather. The large urban plaza was effectively replaced by the private Islamic courtyard in this environment. This contradicts our conceptions of what creates a walkable environment: travel journals on the Middle East and North Africa painted a vivid image of the loud bustling bazaars, filled with the chatter of passersby and the haggling of shopkeepers. The streets of the Arabic-Islamic city were very much alive and walkable while going against the conventions of walkability. Moreover, the alleyways and courthouses are sacred and protected as needed while the public spaces allowed for a high degree of social interactions (commercial at the market and social, religious, and political at the mosque). The alleyways of Islamic cities illustrate the public-private spectrum and its unique brand of communitarian privacy. These residential clusters were highly autonomous, allowing these clusters to become self-sufficient. Public open space was limited and reduced to an inward-looking corridor system. Beyond religious beliefs, the harsh climate and environments of the Islamic world necessitated these narrow alleyways. A key mark of Islamic architecture is the ways in which it interacts with sunlight, this is reflected in Islamic urban forms as well. Cities are oriented around the sun, and alleyways are often oriented in such a way that it would provide shade for passersby.
DOHA
Storefronts are also a key component of what makes the Arab-Islamic city walkable. As was mentioned earlier, the marketplace (Suq or Bazaar) often acts as the center and heart of Islamic cities, and will often be the area with most pedestrian activity. Thoroughfares within the Arab-Islamic city are often tight and narrow, storefronts usually offer some type of shade for pedestrians, or, the city will be built in such a fashion that shade would be readily available in these spots. Repetitive brick domes are deployed in the ceilings of markets in Isfahan, while in Arab cities such as Fez, a system of bamboos supported on wooden beams is deployed. These can also be found across North Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. I write this in the light that we could understand walkability under a more flexible definition. Jeff Speck, the leading scholar on walkability in the United States, has written extensively what makes a city walkable and how we make cities walkable. Jeff Speck boils down the walkable urban fabric into three main components: the variety of buildings, frontages, and open spaces. While there is certainly no denying that these components certainly do make for a walkable city, they neglect the traditional Arab-Islamic form from their definition. Large open spaces and plazas simply do not work given the climate and cultural conditions that these places require. This is troubling in a planning and architecture context, as there is a long and dark history of architects and planners forcing their visions and ideas onto places that simply cannot accommodate them, or do not fit the practices of that place. As planners, we should not think as visionaries: believing that we always know what is best, but to facilitate and allow communities to take charge and build their neighborhoods.
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SAN FRANCISCO
San Francisco Characters
Ben Wichman
*Take a peek into the street landscape of San Francisco where pedestrians are not pedestrians*
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SAN FRANCISCO
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SAN FRANCISCO
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Diary of a Spinning Top
Angelos Angelidis Illustration by Talia Clarick
*The solitude of a flaneur goes hand in hand with a desire to merge with every stranger and inanimate thing that they encounter in the city.*
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The act of walking, the act of observing herds of companions exchanging thoughts distant and incomprehensible in the process reconfiguring one another, moving forwards while my motion that of a spinning top, and every spin morphs into a face or a smell that lingers round and around, the mind dwells in the kingdom of the past which hungrier than the mythical child-eating Lamia, devours one of the few truly valuable currencies, time and again and again and …
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The very now already gone intangible like solitude yet constantly present under the wooden surface of the spinning top. Its movements, the subtle forms and angles that its body acquires across the city’s fabric is the most sincere way of communicating its needs. What a great tragedy that we rely on words to find ourselves on a collision course with other spinning tops because often words are too little, too constrained, not ours to speak, sonic symbols detached of the profoundness that they attempt to express. But our forms in space and time, maybe the only thing we can assume to be true, charged with pure desire, flowing around the city gravitating towards glances, searching for whispers or smiles or witnessing those two strangers who break away from their own formulas to connect with each other and add a new tint in a collective dance that is left to its own devices
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Underneath the sphere of the mundane hides an ocean of possibility for transgression, for love.
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If you spin fast enough then everything around you looks like it’s moving at the same speed If you close your eyes the other senses take over attuning you to how solid yet temporary the world is. The cup you are holding in your hand exerting back the force you put to hold it. The wind caressing your other hand. Your imagination of the built environment as real as when you open your eyes if not as accurate If the only thing that belongs to us is the steps we take, we carve our paths consciously but draped under a false perception of balance If only poetry occupied the dimensions of religion. If, if, if … cosmos was I
LONDON
and I was cosmos
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Les Pasantes
A Pending Dissaproval Publication *Three walks / three conversations between mother and daughter through the streets of Paris. An inter-generational conflict on the female experience of city life.*
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I. “The city provides the order and organization that automatically links otherwise unrelated bodies: it is the condition and milieu in which corporeality is socially, sexually, and discursively produced.” - Elizabeth Grosz- ‘Space, Time and Perversion: Essays on the Politics of Bodies’ (2018) Ooooh look! I wonder if they have that in my size. That would look great on you! Let’s go in and ask? Nah never mind, I would never wear it. Up to you, but we can go in if you want. I have all afternoon. It’s ok. I really don’t need it. It’s a jacket I’m looking for. Let’s keep going. A jacket? But it’s springtime! And don’t you already have one, or five? I think we should get you that dress! It’ll be perfect for this summer. My jackets are all too short. I need something longer, maybe a trench coat... I’m increasingly uncomfortable walking out in certain outfits. At work or around here it’s fine, but up in my neighborhood it can get exhausting. What do you mean!? Have you felt threatened? Have you been harassed? Define harassment! ... When does it start? Being acknowledged? looked at, smiled at, talked to, taunted? approached? followed? physically touched? At which point has the boundary been crossed? Any insistent unwanted attention qualifies as harassment you know... Yeah but how to make clear that I don’t want it? For all I know, I’m giving others unwanted attention too, because they might perceive a nod as invasive. Or worse, I don’t pay attention to them when they wish I did! Couldn’t unwanted inattention also qualify as harassment? Come on, what do you mean... You haven’t harassed anyone! How would I know!?! I probably do every day, either by staring at people, or by not seeing them. Last night, for example—I was walking through the Marais, heading to the metro from a really nice dinner date. It was warm and the streets were filled with life. Spring was in the air, and in my step. I was marveling at the crowded café-terrace across the street and didn’t notice an elderly disabled man panhandling in front of me, sitting against the wall. I failed to see his coinfilled tin can in the dark and accidentally kicked it. It went flying into the street. He let out a loud, painful wail. Everyone turned around and the entire crowd at the terrace stared in our direction. I was so embarrassed I wanted to cry. He couldn’t get up or even move. I quickly picked up all of the coins I could locate, placed them back in the jar, apologized, and walked away. It didn’t even occur to me that I should have given him change until I’d crossed the street, but I was too ashamed to return. Besides I didn’t have any. When I got home, I spent ten minutes washing my hands. 43
I don’t understand. When a man loitering the street looks at you, it makes you uncomfortable, but when you’re the one who doesn’t see him, you’re equally disturbed? I appreciate your effort to reverse the situation here, but it’s not exactly one that symmetry can solve... You are always so racked with guilt; I don’t understand where it comes from. And besides, what’s the difference between the panhandler last night in the Marais and the hordes of men in your neighborhood? Aren’t they asking for money too? I don’t know Mom. It’s not the same thing at all. He was alone, hunkered down besides all of the wealth on display, clearly positioning himself in a state of supplication, of not belonging. Whereas the men around la Chapelle have become the majority now. Maybe it’s a question of numbers. It’s like they own the place. There are hundreds of them, mostly refugees hanging out by their campgrounds. Their tents block the bicycle lane so I either have to ride in the street or walk my bike past them. They’re not asking me for anything—if at all, it seems like they’re trafficking among themselves. But when I walk past them, the sheer mass of men is overwhelming, and I feel really out of place. But they have enough hardship to deal with, I don’t think my discomfort should be their problem... II. “Public spaces take shape through the habitual actions of bodies, such that the contours of space could be described as habitual... We need to examine not only how bodies become white, or fail to do so, but also how spaces can take on the very ‘qualities’ that are given to such bodies. In a way, we can think about the habitual as a form of inheritance. It is not so much that we inherit habits, although we can do so: rather the habitual can be thought of as a bodily and spatial form of inheritance.” - Sara Ahmed- “A Phenomenology of Whiteness” Should we walk over to the Parc Monceau? It must be in full bloom! Let’s head over towards the Batignolles rather, I’m curious to see the latest developments. The shape of the city, these days, is changing before my gaze... How are you? What have you been up to? Well, I’ve been reading a lot about your neighborhood since we last met. I didn’t realize how pervasive the situation had become! Have you signed the petition? The one describing women as an endangered species in the streets of the 18th arrondissement? You must have heard about it... I read about it—but no, I didn’t sign it. It made me uncomfortable... How can you expect things to change if you’re not willing to denounce them? We could go to the protest planned for tomorrow! They’re expecting thousands of women to attend.
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I know Mom, but I really can’t support it. You know they’re going to turn the number of participants into an argument against the migrants. The media exploits everything. The Eritreans, Sudanese, Syrians, Afghans—they’re not the ones yelling obscenities, but they’ll be the ones blamed. Street harassment exists everywhere in this city, but they will only denounce it there because of the migrant campgrounds, and because it is a working-class neighborhood. I cannot endorse this so-called-feminist whistle-blowing that will inevitably be instrumentalized towards racist and anti-poverty ends, especially a few weeks before the legislative elections. Don’t you see that once again, women are being exploited? You mean, once again, men’s wellbeing comes before women’s? Do you really think that being harassed for your gender is more revolting than being harassed for your ethnicity and struggle to exist safely in the world? They’re not at the same level. Of course women should claim the right to be out safely in public day and night, but everyone should have the right to circulate freely without the fear of being arrested or deported... Don’t you think these men have suffered enough? They left their countries under extreme persecution... I’ve heard many say they chose to come here because France first declared the rights of man. I’d like to think we can show them a bit of solidarity. Okay, but the universality of rights begins with equality. What about solidarity with other women? You’re telling me that xenophobia and racism trumps sexism then—at least regarding media presence? I will resist a feminist reading of that apology, I mean, statement... We both know they shouldn’t be set up antagonistically, especially since representations now seem to dictate lived reality... Of course representations influence our behavior! It would be naive to pretend otherwise. They can both enable and disable. Our actions only matter through the way they are reported, interpreted, and circulated... Which is why I refuse to join the voices of these mainstream middleclass feminists who are known to consistently exclude many women, like sex workers or those who wear a veil, from their demonstrations! What kind of non-judgmental solidarity is that? So what are you going to do? I don’t think your neighborhood will get safer anytime soon. Maybe you should consider moving? If all the young women left, imagine what that would do to the neighborhood! I’m not leaving! It’s totally safe, and besides, I love my corner of the 18th for the very same reasons the campgrounds are there—there is a strong sense of community, there is diversity and solidarity. And there is an active resistance to the gentrification creeping in from all sides. I’ve joined a couple of associations, too. Through one of them I’m teaching French to immigrants. It’s been eye-opening. Many of them have moved to the Porte de la Chapelle campground. They keep being relocated. Can you imagine living in a tent in the city? I can’t imagine how cold and noisy it must be. It’s more than the question of comfort, or safety... It makes me acutely aware of my rights— both to the streets but also to leave them, to disappear into the solid mass that constitutes the private sphere. And also of my right to windows, which let me look down into the street from the privileged point of view of height, shelter, and especially invisibility. I can hide in the thickness of the fabric and still witness the public realm from its threshold. Whereas the tents don’t exist in opposition to the street but as objects within it. They’re very conspicuous. And they can’t possibly have windows—any aperture in their shell would not let views out as much as in! They would put the bodies within on display. Oh, there is so much dissymmetry to the two sides of a wall, of a cloak, even of a hole... 45
III. This [veiled] woman who sees without being seen frustrates the colo¬nizer. There is no reciprocity. She does not yield herself. does not give herself, does not offer herself. - Franz Fanon - A Dying Colonialism (1959) Who devises the protocols of “clarity” and whose interests do they serve? ... What does “transparency” keep obscure? - Judith Butler - Gender Trouble (1999) Hi mom... You could have warned me on the phone... I know, I should have. I tried but it didn’t come out... When did you start wearing that? A couple of months ago to new places, a few weeks ago to known ones. You’re breaking my heart. To think of the promise I made to myself when I came to France — that I would study, and have a career, and never, ever have to cover my head again! I came here to seek equal opportunities for women, because my older sister’s education ended with her marriage. She was still a child. Of course you would take it personally. Personally?? How can you wear something that stands as a symbol of submission for millions of women? Elsewhere! Or in the past! But who, in France today, is forced to wear a hijab!? If anything, we’re obliged to take it off... Symbols are perpetually changing— these days, booty shorts and breast implants are signs of submission to men, not veils... Maybe so, but you are still wearing a highly symbolic piece of clothing that has traditionally served as a tool of oppression, a sign of female subordination and invisibility. My grandmother’s veil used to match the pale color of the mud walls so that she would disappear entirely against that backdrop, and my mother’s was black, a more assertive form of deletion from the spectrum of the visible. Do you really not care to appear? First of all, I know how much you still yearn for an Islamic Enlightenment, but look at where modernity has led us? Our incessant Western drive for more light, more visibility, our entitlement to transparency... Tanizaki was already denouncing it in the 1930s. It’s given us glass houses and plunging necklines. Yay. But second: look, I appear. This is the brightest and loudest print I could find on a scarf! I appear as a sign of resistance against the commodification of my body. I refuse to decorate the gardens of the white male! I also appear as an educated French Muslim woman, and you know how much visibility we need in an era where Muslims are increasingly equated with fundamentalists. The more we reinscribe the public realm with our visible presence, the more that will help destigmatize those who are incessantly harassed...
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With such a sense of sacrifice, one would think you grew up in a Christian household... But religion doesn’t even appear in your reasoning. As much as I tried to rid your spiritual education of any ritualistic dilution, it’s still worth pointing out that the hijab’s principal function was to avoid fitna – or discord, but in this country today, to wear a veil is to provoke it. It’s an ostensive sign of disagreement that goes against any construction of civil society as a space of liberty and equality. How can you seek the fundamental tenets of human rights without understanding that they require a secular public space? You lament the hegemony of Western values but you privilege individual rights over collective well-being and civic life... Secular space may indeed have aimed to be inclusive of all religions in theory, but in practice it turns out to be exclusive of most... Don’t you realize how conveniently colorblind universalism turns out to be? But you’re throwing the baby out with the bathwater! Just because it hasn’t been successfully applied doesn’t mean it is not a sine qua non condition for equality... How can you be so young and have already lost all ideals? How could you have held on to yours for this long without evidence of plausibility for their implementation? Ok. I do get it, even though I mourn your generation’s lack of room for ideals. You’ll have to give me a little bit of time to adjust, and I’ll try to understand your point of view, but you have to agree that it’s a discourse entirely constructed by very specific local conditions... Exactly! That’s what I was trying to say. But so is your point of view, you know... Don’t think your education wasn’t the product of a very specific hegemonic culture, of a specific time, of a specific place... One that, whether we envy its ideals or not, few young people can relate to today—which also reveals its non-universality... Hence the need to return to simply the body, the feelings, the sensations, the spiritual, and lose the rituals, don’t you see? Ah, but it would demand so much consciousness all around... it’s hopeless. I’m feeling old now. Where are we heading anyway? Avenue de l’Opéra—I have to swing by the Apple store.
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A Corporate Job
Levy Rayka *Poem about the experience of a trans person moulding according to the time and space they are traversing*
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a corporate job morning crowd surrounding rushing past me and my black blazer look me in the eyes and call me anything but woman, please their eyes heavily shifting aside make way as i hurry past to work on getting used to this. . evening crowd, train station currents shifting, frowning, shoving my chest is flat now, broad like my smile. why - would you ask in the way you pave for yourselves, cutting me off angry, all you know now is I’m not woman.
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COLOGNE
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Bread Walk
Seth Randall-Goddard
*He follows the smell of bread, way back in time. We recommend checking out his website and taking one of his tours* https://sethrgoddard.wordpress.com/walking-tours-of-south-london/
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LONDON 54
“The Burning of Albion Mills” (print) by Seth Randall-Goddard
Walking tours of south london bread making I do these walks as an extension of my political belief - of my communal hope - that if a history of oppressed people can be found and given back to people, they can take pride and courage in their history and so their present too. My walks, therefore, are about bread, and also not. Primarily, they are about the people that make bread. The following is an excerpt inspired and complimenting one of my bread walks:
Near here stood windmills, 200 years before. Both sketched out in drawings by anonymous artists; Freeman’s Mill derelict already. Perhaps after Albion, they recovered a little, lasted for a few more years? But already Camberwell was changing. The newly formed industrial proletariat were coming; over 230,000 people bloomed in the area by the late 19th century. The small village was swallowed, the rowdy and necessary fairs that once sprawled on the surrounding fields were cracked down on, and soon even the industry itself withered, was replaced by grand homes for the new middle classes. Later squatters breathed new life into the area, danced rowdy over the wet earth. From the mud comes fired earth – moulded into brick, into itinerant bread ovens which will appear again and again much later. In a way the destruction of Albion Mills returned the power of millers and bakers back into local jobs, odd jobs and backscratching; messier, far greater personal benefits than industry and capital when amassed. Subsistence, but on their terms. Now even the act of subsistence is chivvied out beyond our control; subsistence now means making £100,000 a year, can you bear to stay in the new hotel-apartments up the road? When Existence means living isolated in a block of 3,000 flats – no need to meet your neighbour, a concierge will tell you to take your hoodie off instead, “not in here, sir”, and shove you through your expensive front door themselves.
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Reflections of an 89 Year old Walker
Panos Alexopoulos transcription by Anta Alexopoulou
*Born and raised in a village but spending the majority of his adult life in Athens, these reflections paint a portrait of a man who walked with all his spirit*
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Οι δρόμοι με γέμιζαν ενέργεια, μακρινοί απόκεντροι μοναχικοί δρόμοι, δρόμοι που να τους κάνεις δικούς σου.
ATHENS
Περπατώ, οδεύω, βαδίζω. Το περπάτημα είναι πολύ καλό για την υγεία μας, κάνει καλό για όλο μας το σώμα και προπαντός στα κόκκαλα μας επίσης κάνει και καλλίγραμμο σώμα. Είναι πολύ καλή παρέα, εγώ πάντα περπατούσα από νέος μου άρεσε πολύ το περπάτημα πήγαινα με τα πόδια στο σχολείο και στην επιστροφή στο σπίτι μου και όταν μεγάλωσα και έπιασα δουλειά πάντα πήγαινα με τα πόδια στη δουλειά μου αγαπούσα πολύ αυτή την πρωινή διαδρομή για να φτάσω στην δουλειά μου παρατηρούσα τον κόσμο, το πρωινό φώς... Κάποιες μέρες συναντούσα κάποιους γείτονές μου και πηγαίναμε μαζί και τότε το περπάτημα γινότανε ακόμη πιό όμορφο. Θυμήθηκα και μια ιστορία από όταν ήμουν μικρός, ήμουν στα χωράφια μαζί με ένα τσοπάνο, στην άκρη του χωραφιού υπάρχει ένα ρέμα που όταν βρέχει γεμίζει και δεν μπορείς να περάσεις. Εκείνη τη μέρα φαινόταν ότι θα έβρεχε εγώ χρησιμοποίησα τα πόδια μου και άρχισα να τρέχω και έτσι σώθηκα, ο τσοπάνης δεν τα κατάφερε και πνίγηκε και λέω αυτή την ιστορία γιατί πιστεύω ότι όταν έχεις γερά πόδια και περπατάς σε προφυλάσει και από κινδύνους. Το άλλο που θυμήθηκα ήταν που ο γυμναστής στο σχολείο μας έλεγε περπατήστε γρήγορα γρήγορα και όσοι δεν μπορούσαν τους έλεγε εσείς θα χάσετε τριάντα λεπτά από τη ζωή σας. Εγώ τώρα έχω μεγαλώσει αρκετά και έχω και προβλήματα υγείας αλλά ακόμα και τώρα προσπαθώ και περπατάω έστω και λίγο. Πάντα περπατούσα και όλοι μου έλεγαν όταν με συναντούσαν στο δρόμο πήγαινε πιό σιγά. Το περπάτημα κάνει καλό σε όλους μας για αυτό εσείς οι νέοι πρέπει να το βάλετε στη ζωή σας και να περπατάτε και να το απολαμβάνετε.
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The roads filled me with energy, long distant solitary roads, roads to seize and to make your own. I walk, I navigate, I tread. Walking is very beneficial to our health, it benefits our body and specifically our bones and helps maintain a lean physique. Walking is good company, I have always walked since I was a youth I enjoyed it, I went to school by foot and went back home the same way and when I grew up and got a job I always walked, I really loved the morning route that got me there, I observed the people, the morning light… Some days I would meet with neighbours and we would walk together and it is then that walking became even more delightful. I remembered a story from when I was little, I was in the fields with a shepherd, at the edge of the field there is creek, that when it rains it gets flooded and you can’t cross it. That day it looked like it would rain, so I used my legs and started to run so I saved myself, the shepherd did not make it and he drowned and I am narrating this story because I believe that when you walk and your legs are strong it can also protect you from threats. The other thing I remembered is that our school gymnastics teacher used to make us walk fast and to the ones who weren’t fast enough, he would say “you are going to lose 30 minutes from your life”. Now I am quite old and I have health problems but even now I try to walk even a little bit. I always walked and everyone who encountered me in the streets used to tell me to go slower [Translator’s note: he used to be a very fast walker you could lose him out of sight very easily]. Walking is beneficial to everyone and this is why young people should incorporate it in their lifestyles, they should walk and cherish it.
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Thanks for reading! We are excited about the lauch of this first issue. We even received a submission from the Queen about one of her evening strolls at the Buckingham Palace gardens, which we had to disrespectfully decline. Our next issue will be focusing on the rebellious city. All modes of expression are welcomed. We consider rebellion to exist from the scale of the body to the scale of the mass demonstration. We want to display how you interpret and live by this. ‘The Walking City’ featured submissions from cities around the world, to which we are ever expanding. We think that the topic of rebellion especially requires a panoply of voices as resistance must be understood in context, while acknowledging that all struggles are interconnected through a growing international discontent against capitalism and the authoritarian state.
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FUEL STRIKES RENT STRIKES INDEGENOUS RIGHTS ACTIVISM
WORKERS RIGHTS PROTESTS
LGBT RIGHTS ACTIVISM WOMEN’s RIGHTS PROTESTS
FARE STRIKES CLIMATE STRIKES
POC RIGHTS ACTIVISM
For submissions and other enquiries you can contact us at info.u.zine@gmail.com 61
by Jean Francois Magre Image from “DE LA CITE” by Jean François Magre (2019)
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