Eylem Ertürk

Shared Walks is an initiative that creates encounters by walking in public space. It connects people to walk together, initiates social interactions and creates possibilities for the appropriation of space and participa­tion in segregated societies. The card set is a toolkit prepared by Shared Walks to open this method for use by different organizations and individuals around the world. Shared Walks opens a playful space for the exploration of the environment and others by walking. Participants walk together in pairs, collect and share observations, impres­sions, thoughts, feelings, memories, stories, associations etc, and map their city from dif­ferent perspectives. Different types of walks propose minor changes to the way we walk normally to pave the way to an appropriation of places, get in relation to others and trigger self-awareness. Shared Walks card set deals with themes re­lated to senses, perceptions and bodily experiences in public space; personal memories and social histories for collective imagination and narration; personal limits in relation to others in society; awareness of the cultural diversity in cities; discovering the symbolic dimensions of physical spaces; and finding comfort in people and places by exploring and discovering public spaces.

Shared Walks was initiated by Eylem Ertürk and Bernd Rohrauer in Vienna in 2018. Logo Design by Raphael Volkmer.

The Card Set

Shared Walks Card Set includes 30 different walks related to 6 thematic areas. Themes provide the basic structure and highlight the main issues that Shared Walks deals with. There are 5 different walks under each theme, which have primary relation to that subject.

Civil society organizations, state institutions and private companies working on local issues can use the card set to host a Shared Walks activity for non-profit purposes. It is suitable for use in community building, neighbourhood mapping, local participation, awareness raising, social inclusion, non-formal learning, knowledge sharing, team building, networking, socio-spatial research etc. The Shared Walks Card Set is available on the Shared Walks website in English-German & French-Dutch.

Any organisation or individual who considers the method useful for their purposes can download the card set and manual and use it for free under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Activities

Shared Walks was developed through public events organised in collaboration with different organisa­tions. Researching the question “How can we walk with others?”, the initial phase of Shared Walks was designed as Walking Research Laboratories. The second phase focused on local interactions through Neighbourhood Mapping. Since 2018, Shared Walks walkshops and roundtables have been realised in collaboration with different local organisations, within festivals or walking/research conferences:

Shared Walks / Climate Change Edition

The emotional and physical loss experienced due to climate change can be overwhelming and debilitating. How can we walk with others as climate change makes life increasingly difficult? Developed in 2020/2021 as an extension of Shared Walks and based on the collaboration of Eylem Ertürk and Ayşem Mert, Shared Walks / Climate Change Edition focuses on the effects of climate change and aims to explore how embodied experience can turn into reflection and awareness, and how this can, in turn, enable agency and action. It aims to respond to the climate emergency by walking and exploring urban and rural environments to trace our experiences about the influences of climate change and the relationships between the human psyche and the more-than-human environment.