Walking projects > >

 

 

On this page are the contributions of Stefaan van Biesen and Annemie Mestdagh [as members of the Milena principle] for the Made of Walkings events [Delphi Greece 2017, La Romieu France 2017, Neo Chorio Akamas Cyprus 2018, Minho University Guimaraes Portugal 2018 and Prespes Greece 2019.

 

Made of Walking is organized by the Milena principle, with a series of screenings, workshops and conferences relating to walking, focussing on dialogues between performance, arts, literature and new media, inviting students, (young) artists, writers, walkers, performers, musicians and composers, sound designers, new media artist, developers, teachers, experts and scientists of different fields, to share their experiences. Projects/performances are meant for following outdoor venues. Made of Walking is curated by Geert Vermeire/the Milena principle. assisted by Annemie Mestdagh & Stefaan van Biesen.

 

 

 

[The Relocated Eye] Sound Walk September ⋈ Walk . Listen . Create [UK London] 2020.

 

 

The Relocated Eye is a project that encourages the walker to approach or to discover a particular place from different perspectives and points of view. It is a performative walk that you can do alone or in a group. And the idea is to move your point of view several times in one particular place that you have chosen. So it can be in a landscape or in an urban environment.

 

Your eye moves, your body takes up different positions so that you start looking at the place from different points of view and try to understand it better. Your body is an ever-changing center from which you will observe and visualize the location. And with the pleasure of really 'sensing’ the city (or natural place) and being aware of it. The city with its own urban 'body', with all its emotional and functional 'organs'. It is great to deal with a place in a creative and relational way, based on these personal observations.

 

Click here to read about the project The Relocated Eye > >

 

Read about: Walk . Listen . Create [walking artists] > >

 

 

 

2025 > >

 

 

The Walking Body (TWB) is an international meeting of walking artists. The 2025 meeting is dedicated to ‘communities of change’, communities that are plural, on the move, and sensitive to issues of the social and natural ecology of the environment in which we live.

 

Photo by Rosario Forjaz

 

Tell me your name is a performative walk and act where you give wild plants (growing between tiles, along walls, or roads) new names based on your own poetic sense. You ignore their scientific names and instead name them intuitively, reflecting their character, beauty, or what they mean to you or others.

 

 

Weeds exist only in our minds—plants we don’t cultivate in gardens or parks are labeled as such. This exercise uses these plants as a metaphor to explore your identity within society by associating yourself with a “weed” and reflecting on its place in nature and our social world..

 

 

TWB explores local communities as dynamic entities in constant transformation, connecting people, territories and ecologies through movement, the art of walking and the relationship between the city and the landscape of Guimarães TWB will take place from 26th of March to 12th of April in Guimarães, in Bairro C, with the meeting point at the Garagem Avenida Gallery/School of Architecture, Art and Design.

 

 

TWB includes a week of walkshops, a round table with the invited artists and an exhibition (26 March to 17 April). This event is free of charge. Anyone interested in art and the act of walking can take part in these actions by registering on the form: https://forms.gle/HtAYpJsdvugMpSRU8

 

 

The walkshops will take place throughout the week from 7th to 12th of April, on walks around the area with a focus on Bairro C, and the meeting point will be the Avenida EAAD Garage Gallery (Av. Dom Afonso Henriques 250). TWB has 7 artists taking part in the workshops: Geert Vermeire (BE), Jordi Lafon (ES), Miguel B Duarte (PT), Montsita Rierola (ES), Natacha Antão (PT), Stefaan Van Biesen (BE) and Rosa Soares (PT).

 

 

 

 

Interview with Geert Vermeire

by Ellen Mueller on December 26, 2023

 

Ellen Mueller: What are your thoughts on walking as artistic practice?

 

Geert Vermeire: My walking art practice began 20 years ago, almost by coincidence, at that time not being aware of walking art, and not being aware that what I did was so much aligned with it. This embryonic beginning was a collective activity, a walk I conceived with my friend Stefaan van Biesen, for whom walking was already over a decade an essential part of his artistic practice (without calling it walking art). We created  a walk in an arboretum, at equinox – with the night at its slowest, walking with handheld lanterns as a reference to the philosopher Diogenes always walking with a lantern in daylight. Our walk drifted through a “library of trees”, “writing and reading simultaneously the invisible text of the landscape by walking it together” (to paraphrase de Certeau), in silence, in a more than human language, walking with plants and as plants, listening, whispering, reading texts and collectively creating sound poems in the language of bees. The walk became the work of art, and the work of art was made by its walkers. The artwork was a background, a musical score, interpreted and transformed by its walkers. This experience of shifting, of letting go, creating conditions for the unexpected to happen, and not to produce, this was freedom, revealed by walking. Eventually there may be nothing more free than walking, it does not consume, it does not need anything, and if done together -in the right time and at the right place- it can bring about a metamorphosis of walkers becoming the walk, and of the landscape becoming the walkers. At the same time walking art is joy, the joy of being surprised, to wonder, to be together. It is joy that transforms walking into art, joy is its catalyst.

 

 

2019 > >

 

 

 

[Tracing a Walk, Ostend 1936] Square 42 ⋈ Prinses Clementinaplein 42 ⋈ Ostend Belgium.

18 -19-20.10.2019 'Buren bij kunstenaars'.

 

The theme of this portable nomadic museum is the group of refugee writers, those who were stranded in Ostend in 1936, fleeing the Nazi regime. Joseph Roth en Irmgard Keun, Egon Erwin Kisch en Gisela, Stefan Zweig en Lotte Altmann, Hermann Kesten,  Ernst Toller en Christiane Grauthoff, Arthur Koestler, Willi Münzenberg, Otto Katz, Etkar André, etc...

 

At that time my mother and my grandparents also stayed in Ostend. It is therefore a mix of family history and world events. Two stories that cross each other, unintentionally.

 

 

 

Made of Walking (VI) Sound and Ecology.

Sound Walk Sunday, global community event September 01.09.2019

Location: Hof Ter Saksen Beveren Belgium.

 

http://www.museumofwalking.org.uk/our-events/sound-walk-sunday/

 

see: https://www.museumofwalking.org.uk/events/wander-weed-session-2/

 

 

The Museum of Walks is a vibrant and ambitious gathering of like-minded artists and walkers, coming together to realise a collective artistic [sound] project on the same day.

 

As part of this cross-border initiative, Stefaan van Biesen and Annemie Mestdagh will host a Wander Weed session in Beveren, Belgium — previously presented at Plant(e)scape – Made of Walking IV (Akamas, Cyprus, 2018) and The Walking Body (Minho University, Guimarães, Portugal, 2019).

 

Participants are invited to join a performative walk that blends elements of a lecture, a conversation, and a physical experience.

 

The central theme of the event is our connection to the plant world — exploring plant intelligence and the ways in which humans relate to the vegetal realm.

 

 

Sound Walk Sunday 2019 will take place on Sunday 1st September in London, UK, as part of a week-long international festival of sound walking events and performances. Beginning on 1st September, the festival will celebrate a wide range of practices — from outdoor audio experiences and geo-located works to immersive performances, listening walks, and sound walks — taking place around the world.

 

In the coming months, we will issue open calls for sound walking pieces created since Sound Walk Sunday 2017, as well as for new works to premiere during the 2019 edition.

 

The first Sound Walk Sunday, held on 27 August 2017, was launched at the Made of Walking International Gathering in La Romieu, southwest France. We are excited to renew our collaboration with Made of Walking for Sound Walk Sunday 2019.

 

http://www.museumofwalking.org.uk/our-events/sound-walk-sunday/

 

 

 

 

Made of Walking (V) walking bodies 2019.

 

Walking encounters/conference in Prespes - Greece, July 1-7 - 2019

Department of Fine and Applied Arts of the University of Western Macedonia - the Milena principle

 

[Made of Walking (V) Walking Bodies] Walking Arts Encounters Conference Prespes Greece.

30.06 > 07.07.2019.

 

 

Video: (What) The Body Knows / The Blue Parade
Video Duration: 10:38
Camera: Annemie Mestdagh & Stefaan van Biesen (2019)

 

This performative walk, titled "(What) The Body Knows / The Blue Parade", took place in the village of Psarades, at Prespes, as part of Made of Walking (V) in 2019.

 

The walk is part of the Library of Walks, an ongoing artistic project initiated by Stefaan van Biesen in 1990. Over the years, this evolving archive has inspired numerous artistic formats across Europe and Brasília, developed in collaboration with curator and writer Geert Vermeire.

 

For the Prespes edition of Made of Walking, Stefaan van Biesen and Annemie Mestdagh designed a portable, nomadic library — physically carried by a group of participants throughout the walk. This symbolic gesture embodied the transmission of embodied knowledge and shared experience through movement and place.

 

Participants / Walkers:
Yannis Ziogas, Natacha Antão Moutinho, Miguel Bandeira Duarte, Rosie Montford, Anna Villas Boas, Geert Vermeire, Christopher Kaczmar, Marie-Anne Lerjen, Kristina Borg, Katerina Paisi, Juana Miranda, Raffaella Zammit, Lucia Masu, Emanuelle Klafiger, Ienke Kastelein, Caterina Giansiracusa.

 

 

Photo: presentation of the prop and collected artefacts during '[What] The Body Knows / The Blue Parade' at the exhibition at the Byzantine Museum Of Agios Germanos at Prespes Greece 2019.

 

 

For the Prespes edition, Stefaan van Biesen and Annemie Mestdagh designed a portable, nomadic library — a collection of knowledge and memory carried through the landscape by a group of participants. As they walked, the act of carrying became both a physical and symbolic gesture, embodying shared experience and embodied knowing.

 

 

The carriers become the artwork. In this way, a mental and energetic field is transformed into a site-specific practice. Through the shared act of carrying, they experience a heightened sense of togetherness, becoming acutely aware of each other's physical presence.

The object — or prop — they carry functions as a conductor, facilitating connection, awareness, and embodiment.

As they walk (and pause), participants are invited to engage with their surroundings through attentive observation, allowing the landscape to be absorbed physically, mentally, and emotionally.

 

 

People carrying a portable library.
The slightly meandering, streamlined shape of the ultramarine blue canvas — echoing the form of nearby Little Prespa Lake — becomes both a visual and symbolic element in the walk. In ancient Greece, the colour blue did not have a name (*1), adding another layer of meaning to its presence.

The canvas also carries an implicit reference to the journeys of refugees, whose paths often cross these same landscapes.

 

As they walk, participants are invited to observe their surroundings attentively and to collect small, meaningful artifacts — items that catch their eye or resonate with the place. These found objects are placed into plastic bottles (or later glass jars) that are attached to the blue canvas.

 

This gives the walk a ritualistic dimension, turning it into a process of gathering, marking, and remembering. The evolving collection becomes a representation of the local biotope — a physical archive of both the natural and social identity of the place where the walk unfolds.

 

 

Being together in silence, carried away by a human energetic stream, walking as a sensitive experience, must lead to a collective act that sensitively reinforces the walk.

 

 

Cinematography: Michaele Mitkoudi. International encounters - conference 2019. WAC. Time: 6:27.

 

 

The project of Made of Walking (V) on Kozani TV.

 

 

Download pdf of 'The Bleu Parade' [extract catalogue WAC University of West-Macedonia] > >

 

 

 

Walking Talking interview by Andrew Stuck [Museum of Walking London UK] 2019.

 

 

Talking Walking Made of Walking ⋈ La Romieu, France – 27.08 > 01.09.2017

Delighted to share that Andrew Stuck (Museum of Walks, London UK) has, in 2019, edited and published the Talking Walking podcast interview recorded with me back in the summer of 2017, during Made of Walking (III) in La Romieu, France.

 

The podcast was recorded while walking together — a conversation in motion about my artistic practice, focusing on the Library of Walks and Letters to a Tree.

🎙️ Listen hehttps://www.talkingwalking.net/stefaan-van-biesen-talking-walking/ink]

 

 

 

2018 > >

 

 

 

The Walking Body

School of Architecture, University of Minho
Guimarães, Portugal | 15 – 19 October 2018

 

The Walking Body was a week-long program of conferences, workshops, and performances exploring the intersection of walking and the arts. Open to both students and the public, the event took place in Guimarães and served as a prelude to the Made of Walking international gathering in the Minho landscape of northern Portugal in 2019.

 

The project was hosted by Lab2PT and the School of Architecture – Visual Arts (EAUM Licenciatura em Artes Visuais) of the University of Minho, in partnership with the art collective The Space Transcribers and the Museum Nogueira da Silva.

 

This initiative laid the groundwork for future collaborations between:
– University of Western Macedonia – School of Fine Arts (Greece)
– University of Wales – Arts and Performance Department (UK)
– University of Minho – School of Architecture / Visual Arts (Portugal)

 

Together, these institutions explore a contemporary interpretation of rural and natural landscapes through site-specific, embodied artistic practices. Set within the emotional and nomadic dynamics of the Anthropocene, the project aims to raise questions — and seek artistic responses — about our evolving relationship with place, movement, and the body.

 

The event will be related to the interaction of the Body to Landscape (and vice versa); the artist or the cultural nomad interprets the Landscape as an open field where he/she obtains experiences and, through them, develops ideas, concepts and his/her artwork. A particular set of emotions is created during the experience of walking in the landscape and that shapes a characteristic venue of art expression.

 

 

Meander III – Performance Walk with Students

Minho University – Guimarães, Portugal
Concept by Stefaan van Biesen & Annemie Mestdagh

 

🎤 Artist Talk: Stefaan van Biesen

An introduction to the artist’s walking-based practice, and how it interweaves with digital media, sound, drawing, and performance. Stefaan van Biesen’s work is rooted in the associative connection between thought, action, and environment — asking:

“How do thoughts manifest through actions in the environment, and to what extent do they contribute to our well-being?”

 

His oeuvre reflects a contemplative, interdisciplinary approach, shaped by both Eastern philosophy and Western critical thought.

Van Biesen has exhibited internationally in Belgium, the Netherlands, France, Germany, the UK, Poland, Italy, Greece, Cyprus, Portugal, Brazil, and China.
Language: English

 

 

Wander Weed

(Stefaan van Biesen & Annemie Mestdagh)

Wander Weed is a performative walk led by Stefaan van Biesen, inviting participants to explore a nomadic artwork together in small groups of five.

 

During the walk, Stefaan reads excerpts from his poetic series Letters to a Tree, weaving reflections and narratives into the shared experience.

Concept: Stefaan van Biesen / The Milena Principle

Production: Annemie Mestdagh

 

http://www.mns.uminho.pt/thewalkingbody/

 

 

 

Plant(e)scape. Made of Walking (IV)Neon Chorio [Akamas Peninsula Cyprus] 29.06 < 08.07.2018.

 

 

Made of Walking IV

Sites Embodied / Nature Embodied
Neo Chorio, Akamas, Cyprus | 29 June – 8 July 2018

 

This edition of Made of Walking (IV) was hosted by the Milena Principle > Dance Gate Lefkosia, in collaboration with Nicosia University – Fine Arts and Neapoli University Paphos – School of Architecture.

 

The theme, Plant(e)scape, explored the relationship between human movement and emotion within a rich botanical environment. The project combined walking as a creative instrument with two emerging fields of study: Spaziergangwissenschaft (Promenadology) and Critical Plant Studies (Vegetal Philosophy / Plant-Thinking).

 

Promenadology offers a method to explore and engage with our everyday living environments while delivering content and knowledge through movement and place. Paired with Critical Plant Studies, which regards plants as living, conscious beings — sentient and thinking entities rather than mere objects for classification — the project challenged conventional anthropocentric views.

 

By embracing a symbiotic existence shared by humans, animals, and plants, and moving beyond anthropomorphic centrality, the initiative aimed to reclaim a vegetal perspective. This perspective fosters new ecological meanings and deepens the symbolic and aesthetic dimensions of our relationship with the natural world.

 

 

 

Selected and key note artists: Tracey M Berntsen (Australia), Ienke Kastelein (Holland), Lezli Rubin-Kunda (Canada/Israel), Rosie Montford (UK), Haris Pellapaisiotis (Cyprus), Panagiotis Lezes (Greece), Arianna Economou (Cyprus), Stefaan van Biesen (B), Annemie Mestdagh B), and Vermeire Geert (B).

 

 

 

[Wander Weed] The Language of Plants. Neon Chorio [Akamas Peninsula Cyprus] 29.06 < 08.07.2018.

 

 

 

Wander Weed

A performative exercise exploring “the language of plants,” connected to Stefaan van Biesen’s Letters to a Tree (1996–1997). In this experience, you don’t read the letters—you feel and touch them.

 

We are Wander Weed: The Language of Plants

How do we relate to the green world around us?
What can we learn from nature’s intelligence?
Can the behavior of plants offer us guiding principles?
Are we ready to live with the awareness that the human and plant worlds are deeply intertwined?
Can we accept that plants possess a form of intelligence?

Many questions to be asked.

 

 

As a performative group exercise, each participant receives a nomadic artwork—a prop bag to carry during the walk. Inside the bag, they can feel a letter containing carefully selected leaves from plants grown by Stefaan van Biesen and Annemie Mestdagh in their own garden. This letter, addressed personally to the participant, holds a gift and a surprise.

 

The experience sparks curiosity, tactile awareness, and wonder, accompanied by a talk from the artist about our relationship with plants, the tension between culture and nature, and readings from Letters to a Tree.

At the end of the walk, participants are invited to smell their hands, now fragrant from the aromatic plants they carried. This sensory moment encourages reflection on their own past and personal memories.

 

The activity lasts one hour and is repeated in three groups of up to five participants during the week of Made of Walking (IV) in Neo Chorio, Akamas, 2018.

 

 

The participants of the Wander Weed sessions were: Ienke Kastelein (NL), Annelies Vantygem (Belgium), Geert Vermeire (Belgium), Rosie Montford (UK), Tracey M Benson (Australia), Witold van Ratingen (NL), Panagiotis Lezes (Greece), Katarina Paisi (Cyprus), Sol Burton (UK/Cyprus), Lezli Rubun-Kunda (Israel/Canada), Gideon (Israel), Jen Martin (UK), Jacqui Orly (UK), Mark Durkan (Ireland) and Josefin Westborg (Sweden).

 

 

Photo: the thirth Wander Weed Variation session in an abandoned house in the centre of Neo Chorio.

 

 

 

[Wander Weed Variations] Video/perfromance Neon Chorio [Akamas Peninsula Cyprus] 08.07.2018.

 

 

 

Wander Weed Variations [Letters]
Made of Walking (IV)
Neo Chorio Akamas, Cyprus | 2018

The letters are kept in a copper-colored fabric prop—a symbolic reference to the island’s name. One theory suggests that Cyprus derives its name from the large copper deposits found there, with copper’s Latin name being cuprum. Copper (symbol: Cu) is known as a conductor, and in alchemy, it is associated with the goddess Aphrodite—who, according to mythology, gave the island its name, also known as Kyprida, after her birthplace.
The video was filmed inside an abandoned house in Neo Chorio Akamas, located in a precious and still pristine nature reserve now increasingly threatened by real estate development. The echoes of the past linger between the stones and ruins, where voices seem to whisper old songs.

 

• Camera and prop performance: Annemie Mestdagh
• Concept, video, and sound composition: Stefaan van Biesen
• Made of Walking: An international gathering of walking artists and scientists
• Organized by: Geert Vermeire / The Milena Principle, 2018
• Video Duration: 5:52

 

 

 

2017 > Made of Walking (III)La Romieu France.

 

 

 

[Box of Walks - Nomadic museum] Made of Walking ⋈ La Romieu France 27.08 > 01.09.2017.

 

The Box of Walks is an artifact from a nomadic museum of walks, exhibited in situ for a limited time. It travels with the artist as portable luggage and is presented to the public whenever the opportunity arises.

 

 

 

 

 

[Enter the Triangle] performance Made of Walking La Romieu France 27.08 > 30.08.2017.

 

 

Enter the Triangle (Silent Movements)

A Gentle Walking Performance

 

Enter the Triangle is a subtle walking performance for three participants, inviting them to listen deeply to each other’s bodies and the movements they make in relation to their own physical presence.

 

The piece explores how we relate to another’s unique physical “dialect,” fostering awareness of the other(s) while simultaneously tuning into the urban environment around us. Though connected, there remains a persistent sense of disconnection — the ability to touch while still maintaining distance.

 

This performance acts as a mental exercise in trust, encouraging participants to follow each other’s moving bodies as they navigate space together. Through this shared movement, they form a living, flowing human sculpture — a constantly shifting triangular shape, shaped by their interactions and collective consciousness.

 

 

 

Stefaan van Biesen. 'Enter the Triangle'. 27.08 > 30.08.2017. A silent meditative walk/performance for 3 walkers, during Made of Walking La Romieu 2017. With Annelies Vantyghem (Belgium), Niran Baibulat (Finland), Rosario Forjaz (Portugal), Andrew Stuck (UK), Mel Sutton (UK), Ivana Pinna (Italy/Spain), Guendouz Nawal (Algeria/france), Carol Mancke (USA), Phillip Mckenzie (UK), Leo Kay (Belgium/UK), Pam Patterson (Canada), Leena Raudvee (Canada), Ruth Roadbent (UK).

 

 

 

2017 > Made of Walking (II)

Delphi Greece.

 

 

Made of Walking

Delphi, Greece | 15 – 23 July 2017

 

As part of the Animart Experiential Arts School and Forum of Contemporary Artists, the Milena Principle organized a forum featuring a series of walks and walking workshops. The event focused on fostering dialogues between performance, arts, literature, and new media.

 

Artists, writers, walkers, performers, musicians, composers, sound designers, new media artists, developers, teachers, researchers, experts, and scientists from diverse fields were invited to share their experiences and explore walking practices together.

 

Contributors came from across the globe, including the US, Canada, Australia, Singapore, South Africa, Egypt, Israel, India, France, the UK, Portugal, the Netherlands, Belgium, Turkey, Cyprus, and Greece.

 

For more information, visit: Animart Greece 2017

 

 

the Milena principle is an internationally operating platform and an artistic creation and research lab towards interdisciplinary practices within performance arts and new media, with a specific interest in the topics of ecology, sound, science, society and awareness.

 

Read the full program of Made Of Walking Delphi Summerschool Greece 2017.

 

 

 

[Enter the Triangle] Made of Walking (II). Animart Summer School. Delphi Greece [20.07 > 21.07.2017].

 

 

 

Enter the Triangle

Interactive Performance for 3 Walkers and Dancers
Made of Walking, Delphi 2017

Concept and Video: Stefaan van Biesen / The Milena Principle
Attribute Made by: Annemie Mestdagh / The Milena Principle

 

Performers:
Lina Efstathiou (Greece), Eleni Nakou (Greece), Julia Redei (UK/Germany), Penny Finiri (Cyprus), Leand Kalaja (Albania), Panagiotis Lezes (Greece), Aliki Arnaouti (Greece), Ioanna Thanou (Greece), Chara Tzoka (Greece), Marianna Makri (Greece), Geert Vermeire (Belgium), Haris Pellapaisiotis (Cyprus)

 

 

 

 

 

The Colour You AreMade of Walking (II)
Delphi, Greece | 15 – 23 July 2017

 

A complete sensory experience of our environment is only possible when all our senses are harmoniously redefined and finely tuned through a process of “feeling thinking / feeling thinking.” Color, smell, sound, and emotions exist as different octaves of the same phenomenon. Like notes on an imaginary string, they flow into one another. These stimuli and sensations are manifestations of vibrations or frequencies at various levels. For example, the color red can be seen as a harmonic expression of the musical note “do.”

 

A Scent of Silence is an exercise in resonance—an awareness that we are more than just form. Everything in the universe can be reduced to numbers and frequencies, all interconnected. We are moving colors and sounds, sensitive and alive.

 

During this sensory walking workshop, participants are invited to discover their own unique “tone” and “color(s).” The colors used are inspired by the great Russian tone poet and composer Aleksandr Scriabin (1872–1915), honoring his exploration of the deep relationship between tone and color in his musical compositions.

 

 

 

Starting from the Shen Dao system of each person's neutral base color (personalized and determined by year of birth, and linked to the nourishing, soothing, controlling, draining colors and their functions) in relation to the 5 elements.

 

 

 

 

Walks | the urban flaneur

 

 

'not all of those who wander are lost'. [photo below: Annemie Mestdagh 2019]

 

 

Spaziergangwissenschaft | An Everyday Practice

 

Stefaan van Biesen is a Belgian visual artist, multimedia artist, sound artist, and writer. His body of work centers on exploring walking as both a tool for knowledge and a medium for artistic creation.

 

With an artistic trajectory spanning over 20 years, his practice encompasses walks, drawings, projects, installations, videos, performances, texts, and soundscapes. These are developed as part of an interactive process—a continuous flow of ideas, images, sounds, and visions—where collaboration with other artists, experts from diverse disciplines, and community-based artistic initiatives play a vital role.

 

 

Since 1990, Stefaan van Biesen has undertaken walks both at home and abroad, documenting these performances through video, photographs, models, texts, and drawings. The Swiss sociologist and urbanist Lucius Burckhardt (1925–2003) introduced the concept of ‘Spaziergangwissenschaft’ (the science of walking) in the 1990s. Stefaan van Biesen sought to expand this concept into a subjective thought exercise within the urban fabric and landscape—what he termed ‘Head Wanderer’ (2002).

 

This approach led to the creation of ‘Sensitive Islands,’ where social observations were recorded from an unbiased standpoint. From these explorations grew various ‘Libraries of the Walks,’ with the most recent exhibited in Brasília in 2012 at the Jardim Botânico, Brazil.

 

At its core, this practice poses a question and extends an invitation to the ‘art of wandering,’ where the destination is secondary to the journey itself. The day unfolds as a cycle of encounters, with the body serving as a moving center—an instrument of knowledge, experience, and creativity.

 

 

Stefaan van Biesen plays a significant role in the ‘science of walking’, approaching it through an aesthetic lens and documenting it with installations, performances, multimedia, and drawings. His work resonates strongly with that of another renowned walker, Fernando Pessoa.

 

Van Biesen’s thinking aligns with the nomadic spirit of Renaissance artists who traveled extensively across Europe—Albrecht Dürer being a notable example. These journeys were themselves artistic projects, where streams of ideas, drawings, and artifacts emerged through encounters with diverse people and cultures. These travels functioned as laboratories of thought, and Van Biesen reveals this creative laboratory through his work.

 

His notes, artifacts, and drawings enrich the narrative of his journeys. For Van Biesen, walks are traces of memory, serving as ecological gestures and invitations to wander.

 

 

 

 

 

1992 > the first registrated walks.

 

[My load is undefined/ Onbestemd is mijn vracht] [video 1992]. The registration of a 2 days walk. A walking performance on several locations in Flanders Belgium. Video/production made by my fellow walker: Toon Sarens.

 

 

My Load Is Undefined

My first walk marking the beginning of an artistic practice

 

Documentation of a two-day walk in the Flemish landscape, Melsele, Belgium, 1992.
An homage to Bruegel and Bosch.

Attribute: Stefaan van Biesen
Camera and Video: Toon Saerens
Video Duration: 04:46

 

 

 

 

 

Blind Walk | The Book I Am | Melsele 1992.

 

 

Silent walking performance Melsele Belgium. A quiet walk in my own living environment, in places that will disappear with the arrival of new buildings and houses. The transformation of a rural village swept up by the big city. A silent goodbye to the echoes of the past.

 

 

 

 

Walks > An Everyday Practice >

An Inspiration since 1990

 

Method I: Broadly documented walks — research into the urban human environment — walks as a sensory experience — which, through documentation, gain both a scientific and aesthetic dimension.

 

In 2005, Ingrid Pee (former assistant to Joseph Beuys during the 7000 Oaks project at Documenta Kassel, Germany) introduced me to the concept of ‘Spaziergangwissenschaft’, originally developed in the 1990s at the University of Kassel, Germany, by Swiss sociologist and urbanist Lucius Burckhardt (1925–2003).

Walking elevated to an observing stimulus in relation to space — this perfectly aligned with my work and thinking. It was a revelation and gave me a profound sense of belonging, seeing that my practice fits within a rich artistic tradition—a large family of predecessors.

 

 

Method II: Between 2000 and 2004 — members of ‘Bewust Wandelen’ (Walking Consciously) — exploring the concept of geomancy.

 

This small alternative group of artists, writers, and therapists, inspired and led by Kris Tolomei, regularly organized lectures and walks at energetic sites in Belgium and the Netherlands.

 

 

During this period, a cross-pollination became the foundation of Stefaan van Biesen’s work: that of an urban flâneur allowing art to emerge from observation. Life as a cycle of encounters—with people, situations, places, buildings, and the natural and animal world—a conversation with trees since childhood. A rich fertile ground for artistic creation.

 

 

 

 

Breeding grounds for artistic reflections

 

 

 

Chronicle of the urban walker

'The flaneur walks in the city's hustle and bustle as a devoted observer, who with great excitement absorbs everything in order to try to understand life and to wonder. In the midst of all urban activity he solves and becomes one with the city he has become.
The flaneur feels at home everywhere. His true 'home', however, is his body. A silent person that walks through squares and streets. It's an important and necessary feeling to want to know the world and to see it, always with other eyes. To be carried away completely and the same time to hide yourself visibly. The will to be that coincidental passant, a croniqeur incognito. The desire to refine all life art to taste full life as a shivering fish in the expanding universe. This vacuum of nourishing energy, flowing from the centuries-knocking heart of the city. And this is what makes us come home.'

 

Stefaan van Biesen

 

 

Modern cities have often forgotten how to truly listen to walking and to the needs of those who walk. This exploration focuses on two key questions, interspersed with short walks:

• How can the ideas of listening to walking and listening while walking be integrated into everyday city planning and design?

• How can the worlds of art and walking advocacy collaborate to help communities create a balanced mix of physical and spiritual walking spaces, fostering healthier and happier environments?

Walking is a low-impact activity that requires minimal equipment, can be done anytime, and allows you to move at your own pace. It offers an accessible form of exercise without the risks often associated with more vigorous activities. Walking is especially beneficial for people who are overweight, elderly, or have not exercised for a long time.

Beyond its physical benefits, walking is sociable, strengthening our sense of community and connection.

 

 

 

 

Wanderlust > a tribute to previous walkers.

Wanderlust. An hommage to Caspar David Friedrich. [1774-1840].

 

Letter: Thoughts of a coincidental walker (in a city park).

'The black bird above me knows that the evening is falling. It croaks its dissatisfaction and then flies away, far from the place where I stand. It is like a little rascal who tries to chase me away. I know it is there, hidden between the foliage, waiting for me to leave. It sees me as an uninvited guest in its sunroom and claims this spot. A soft tangle of countless weak noises makes it clear that I am not alone on this path. I am a walker with an inward turned ear, listening to the beat of my heart, and to how my lungs fill up with air and release it after every breath I take. A body that sways like a feather, a vibrating string in a big sound box named world. A strange kind of music appears out of nothingness.

It sounds like humming, the buzzing of a dancing bee in its hive. The throat, a shaft of noises, through which everything has to be shoved. And it fades away through the thin layers of air around me. Words, which dissolve into nothingness, thoughts which keep spinning around in your head.

Whispering is nothing more than careful listening to oneself.'

Stefaan van Biesen.