WALKING – Thinking in Motion.
Lucius Burckhardt and the Future of Perception
Symposium + Walkshops
September 5–7, 2025
Berghotel Alpenblick, Tenna, Safiental (CH) + hybrid
> Program + Summaries (Talks & Workshops)
> Videos of all Talks + Documentation Walkshops
A transdisciplinary symposium on walking as an artistic practice, spatial experience, and epistemic method in the spirit of Lucius Burckhardt.
2025 marks the 100th anniversary of Lucius Burckhardt, the founder of promenadology (also known as strollology, science of walking). Yet this occasion is much more than a historical commemoration. In a present marked by ecological crisis, urbanization pressure, and digital spatial reconfiguration, his thinking gains new urgency. Burckhardt’s approach to take walking seriously as an epistemological practice can be read today as an invitation to critical world perception. WALKING becomes a method to question those designs that appear “natural,” and a practice through which space, bodies, and power relations become visible.
For Burckhardt, the walk was not an end in itself, but a means to challenge perspectives. According to his thesis, we do not see the landscape—we see our expectations. In a world shaped by fast planning processes, algorithmic navigation, and global acceleration, promenadology offers a decelerating counter-movement: a thinking in motion, a moment of pause through walking.
Current positions in art, philosophy, and social sciences are taking up this impulse and developing it further. Tim Ingold speaks of «slow observation» as an ecological method. Blake Morris, Cristina Maldonado, and Janet Cardiff explore walking in the arts as a performative, space-producing act. Rebecca Solnit describes walking as a deeply cognitive practice: “The rhythm of walking generates a kind of rhythm of thinking, and the passage through a landscape echoes or stimulates the passage through a series of thoughts.”
Thus, walking not only produces movements in space, but also movements of thought. At the same time, voices like Sara Ahmed or Anna Tsing emphasize that paths are not equally open to all: space is never neutral, walking never universal.
Burckhardt’s relevance today lies less in his concrete answers than in his method of questioning: the invitation to understand perception as both formative and shaped. Those who take this stance seriously will recognize: WALKING is not an escape from the world, but a means to understand, transform, and reimagine it.
But what does that mean today, when walking is monitored, channeled, and measured? How can we bring Burckhardt’s ideas into a time where walking is simultaneously a form of protest, self-care, mobility practice, and artistic medium? Perhaps the real question is no longer: “Why is landscape beautiful?”, but: How can we learn to perceive anew in a fragmented world—through movement, attention, and walking as resistance?
Topics and Formats
The symposium offers the opportunity to experience and shape WALKING from artistic, scientific, design-oriented, or activist perspectives and to exchange ideas with like-minded participants. We embrace diverse formats that go beyond traditional lectures: performative walks, lecture performances, walkshops, audio tracks, and theoretical reflections are all welcome. The symposium emphasizes practical experience. In addition to two keynotes and nine short presentations, six walkshops will be offered. A significant portion will take place outdoors, walking through the landscape.
Speakers and Workshops
Othmar Arnold / Linard Bardill / Nitin Bathla / Lisa Lee Benjamin / Annemarie Bucher / Violeta Burckhardt / Gabriyel Dari / Babak Fakhamzadeh / Samuel Haettenschweiler / Johannes M. Hedinger / Pablo Helguera / Hanna B. Hölling / Tim Ingold / Johanna Just / San Keller / Marie-Anne Lerjen / Marinka Limat / Marcus Maeder / Jana Orb, Mingyue Zhang / Martin Ott / Raimund Rodewald / Elisa Storelli / Aylin Tschoepe / Nazli Tümerdem / Robin Winogrond among others.
Organizational Details
The conference will take place from Friday, September 5, 2025, 4 p.m. to Sunday, September 7, 2025, 4 p.m. in Tenna in Safiental (GR) and partly hybrid.
A second part is planned for spring 2026 in an urban setting.
The event is organized by the ILEA Institute for Land and Environmental Art.
Curation/Moderation: Violeta Burckhardt, Johannes M. Hedinger, Raimund Rodewald.
Supported by Lucius und Annemarie Burckhardt Stiftung, Stiftung Landschaftsschutz Schweiz and Stiftung Mercator Schweiz.
Selected contributions will be included in the publication WALKING (ILEA Press), scheduled for release in 2026.
Participation
The Symposium is sold out. Some talks will be offered in a hybrid format, but not the walkshops.
ILEA – Institute for Land and Environmental Art, www.ilea.art
studio erde, https://www.studio-erde.com/
Lucius und Annemarie Burckhardt Stiftung, www.lucius-burckhardt.org
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Target Groups
Who might benefit from (re)discovering Burckhardt?
- Artists working with space, body, and perception
- Researchers who practice walking as a method – in anthropology, sociology, psychology, and philosophy
- Urban planners and designers interested in how people perceive and experience space
- Activists defending public space as political space
- Educators and learners seeking new forms of thinking and learning—outdoors, walking, questioning
Reading Burckhardt—or rather: walking with him—means embracing an attitude that is radically open, observant, and not-knowing. It is a counter-model to a hectic expert culture. And it holds a promise: that attentive walking can make another world visible.
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Thematic Fields – brief description
- Walking as artistic, research-based, and social practice
Walking as an artistic, epistemic, and participatory method: walks as performances, lecture walks, walkshops, storytelling, trail reading, writing while walking, and walking as social choreography. Walking becomes a creative and community-building practice that enables new insights and experiences. - Walking as ecological practice and encounter with landscape
How does walking change our relationship with the environment? Walking is understood as a means of ecological perception, of encountering landscapes, and of sustainable mobility. It includes tracking, encountering non-human actors (animals, rivers, territories), and walking as climate and environmental practice. - Walking, memory, and historical spaces
Walks as forms of active remembrance, historical experience, and trace-seeking. Walking becomes a method of memory culture, biographical and collective storytelling, and engagement with local and global histories. - Walking as political, caring, and resistant practice
Walking as protest, care practice, and everyday resistance. Focused on issues of displacement, the right to move, the crossing of borders (geographical, political, social), and walking as a solidaric, politically motivated action. - Perception, space, and power – feminist, decolonial, and inclusive perspectives
Who is allowed to walk where, when, and how? Walking is never neutral. This field examines power relations in space, feminist, queer, and decolonial perspectives, and issues of accessibility, embodiment, health, and inclusion. It addresses walking rights, visibility, and barriers in public space. - Digital mobility and the future of walking
How do digital technologies shape our walking? This field addresses walking in data-driven cities, smart walking, gamification (e.g., geocaching, walking games), tracking, digital navigation, and surveillance. Walking is explored as a hybrid phenomenon between physical movement and digital control. - Promenadology/ Strollology today – learning perception anew
Lucius Burckhardt’s science of strolling as a contemporary and future-relevant school of perception: how can promenadology be rethought and applied in times of smart cities, climate crisis, and AI? This field invites critical expansion, practical exploration, and theoretical reinterpretation of the science of walking.
