Rights of Way

The movements of our bodies through cities and space carry with them crucial social, political and cultural potentials. Despite the typical association of bodily movement with the mundane and the seemingly banal, our ability (or inability) to move through space offers us the possibility of transforming ourselves from spectators to witnesses and activists of our cities.

Rights of Way, The Body as Witness in Public Space takes our bodily movements as a starting point to traverse the terrains of art, culture, architecture, sociology, literature and politics in order to imagine different forms of witness and apply them to our immediate environment. When many still have to fight to claim their share of the public sphere; when hate crimes and acts of institutional violence persist in the public sphere; when cities continue to grapple with the effects of mass surveillance, precarious citizenship, widespread gentrification and divisive body politics, we seek to question, challenge and reimagine who has the right of way.

This publication is a collection of essays, interviews, texts and images from a range of artists, researchers, academics, architects and historians. Taken together, the contributions question our positions of access and inaccessibility in space, and in doing so orchestrate the act of witnessing as a vital component in giving meaning to our cities.

With contributions from: Pauline Agustoni, Elia Castino, The Dazzle Club, Shannon Finnegan, Kevin Gotkin, Annee Grøtte Viken, Amy Gowen, Christa-Maria Lerm-Hayes, Corinne Heyrman, Paoletta Holst, Rahma Khazam, Alessandro Marchi, Jeannette Petrik & Soeria van den Wijngaard.