Paper Short Abstract:

As you go… the roads under your feet, towards the new future (2019–22) was a four-year curatorial research inquiry with partner cells in Central Asia, China, the Balkans, East Africa that I initially developed in response to the geo-political framework of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

Paper Abstract:

As you go… the roads under your feet, towards the new future (2019–22) was a four-year curatorial research inquiry with partner cells based in Central Asia, China, the Balkans, and East Africa that I initially developed in response to the geo-political framework of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

While we learned about the BRI’s impact together, we also learned from, with, and about each other via a long-term process of ‘walking with’ each other, which included regular meetings, intensive workshops, and seminars. We learned how to speak nearby (more than about) China, but also how to speak nearby each other as we searched for ethically and economically sustainable modes of working within a transnational multi-year inquiry whose partners have access to different levels of resources.

Through inquiry, i used Canadian geographer Juanita Sundberg's methodology of walking with, which she separated into two steps. The first step is the act of positioning: that involves locating my body knowledge in relation to the existing paths I know and walk. Sundberg defines the second step as walking with: ‘Walking with means “reciprocal respect for the autonomy and independence of organizations” involved in the struggle; in other words, respect for the multiplicity of life worlds. Step two, then, involves learning to learn about multiplicity’. Walking with is the methodology that informed and structured As you go… as a curatorial process unfolding over time and with multiple partners living and speaking from different and unequal positions.