Artists’ walks
Art & Talking hosts regular art walks by walking artists, walking creatives, and exhibiting artists. As creative pieces, the art walks convene outside the gallery shortly before the start time. Refreshments in the courtyard, the local pub or a special viewing of the exhibition sometimes follow. The walks are free and RSVPs are requested but not reunited. Members of the local, creative, and wider communities are welcome. The walks are open to the public.
Walks are curated by Scott Schwager, Phd
Going on the walk:
Please RSVP ahead to Art&Talking if you can to help us plan. Questions about the route, accessibility or other topics, may also be sent to director (@) artandtalking.com
Comfortable clothes and walking shoes/boots are recommended, not required. A camera, or phone for taking photographs, or sketchbook/notebook may be handy.
Interest in leading a walk:
We welcome interest from walking artists and creatives to lead a walk or get involved by email with the subject line Art & Walking to the email: director (at) artandtalking.com
AN ART WALK WITH BLAKE MORRIS Sunday July 5th.
Written by Tony Bicât 12/07/26
Only a madman or a Psycho-Geographer would attempt to walk Chipping Norton following a map of Venice. The temperature is certainly appropriate outside Art and Talking the enamel table is white hot and Musica Legera Italiana blares form the speaker.
Close your eyes and you could be on The Piazza San Marco.
Michael offers iced water and we set off, Blake Morris in the lead, clutching the map of Venice, a souvenir of the Biennale? Gareth making notes and sketches of the route as we go.
We walk beside Canal Grande aka the A44 to the fermata dell'autobus just down from the Fox (Il Volpe) We do not know it but this is an omen.
Downhill by the dark Vicola del Sale Rosa (Pink Salt alley), where Malcolm works, we come to a liminal space of the kind that could be in any town or city. It is dangerous to loiter here. There are at least four No Parking signs.
We are literally 'in the weeds' trying to decide which way to go. But curiously the weeds are bagged, bagged-weeds seeming to be a feature of this expedition. As always in Venice there is unlocked iron-gate and a path that beckons... we take this.
The canal basin at Hythe Bridge in Oxford was filled in in the Seventies to make a car park. In a reciprocal arrangement Chippy Council has agreed to flood The New Street Car Park to corral the gondolas. Maybe?
Eventually, on the lower level of the car park, we find a hidden path through to the houses and bungalows, which now cover this hillside, where in the early Seventies were only trees.
Venice is a city of masks and intrigue, much like Chippy on a summer’s night. Does Pampas grass outside a bungalow attests to the presence of Swingers?
To escape any taint of immorality, we climb up the hill crossing the Canal Grande again. Going up past the Co-op (Supermercato) and the Schola Musica ignoring The Lido and into Campo de Volpe aka Fox Field to visit the Roman Statue, which stands, on a cairn of stones with a plastic rose in her hair. We each put a stone on the cairn to bring luck.
After passing more bagged-weeds and an impressive stack of breezeblocks, could these be Ruskin's famous Stones of Venice?
After that it is all downhill. Two failed attempts trying to find a way through Gill's passage and get onto Topside. One sinister darkened alley with its locked iron bars, a perfect prison for the victims of unscrupulous Doges, the crimes of the Borgias or Gonzaga's dwarves and a sad metaphor for the tragic closing of Gills the Ironmongers.
We pass The Living Room Cinema and I remember Mike Leigh saying 'How winning The Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival was Box Office death.' But the map is our salvation and we descend past the Bayeux Tapestry to Art and Talking. Michael offers aperitvo. There is more Italian pop and then spotify tracks from Teeth 'n' Smiles. The walk was a success for we all learned something. We may not have heard a gondolieri sing but, then again, no one got their feet wet.
Past walks
Sunday October 5th, 11am Artist’s walk led by Scott Schwager. Animal Encounters. Painting & the art of the walk.
Approx 90 minutes, free
Tuesday 28 October 2025, 12 PM. Circumambulation! Artist’s walk led by Scott Schwager. Walk&Talk: Circles and visual circumambulation. We will talk about a way of walking to form a view of a series of events.
Sunday November 2nd, 11am Artist’s walk. led by Margarita Zafrilla Olayo
Sunday November 2nd, 11am Artist’s walk. Led by Pato Bosich Approx 90 minutes, free
Sunday December 7th, 11am Artist’s walk. The lost pubs of Chipping Norton led by Michael Bucknell MA, approx 90 minutes, free. We will finish in the Red Lion, with a free pint of Hook Norton ale, courtesy of Ben of the Fox.
Sunday May 10th ‘26 Dr. Morag Rose, will lead a walk & then present her new book
“ The Feminist Art of Walking”.
11am - 12.30pm: Walk
1pm: Talk
Join walking artist, activist and author Morag Rose for a walk and talk with The Feminist Art of Walking, her first book.
This walking is inclusive of all kinds of bodies and enabling technologies such as wheelchairs, orthotics and sticks. Our feminism is intersectional, trans inclusive and always open to learning.
Morag will lead a walk sharing themes and readings from the book, and then we will gather in Art & Talking for a conversation. All welcome to join us for all or part of the event.
Walk, at 11am-12.30pm:
The tour begins at Art and Talking, meeting at 10.50am to leave at 11am. The walk will last approximately 90 minutes and follow a route through the city streets in the vicinity of the art centre. The terrain will be the locality around Chipping Norton and will include pavements, tracks and grassy, possibly muddy places. We will avoid stairs, steep inclines and exceptionally hazardous sites. The pace will be slow with frequent stops to share stories, and some of those stops will include places to sit down. We will then make our way back to Arts and Talking for around 12.30pm when we will have an opportunity to have a chat, answer questions and sign books etc. Toilets, including accessible toilets, are available. Refreshments are available at Arts and Talking. In case of extreme weather the event will go ahead in Arts & Talking with a reading instead of a walk. We want everyone to feel welcome to walk or wheel with us. If you have any specific access needs please get in touch before the event and we will do our very best to accommodate you. Please also get in touch if you have any questions or need any more information.
1pm: Talk
Following the walk we will gather for a conversation. There will be refreshments from after the walk at Arts & Talking.
Bio
Morag Rose is a walking artist, activist and author based in Salford UK. In 2006 she founded The Loiterers Resistance Movement and she has performed, exhibited and published her work widely. Morag is a Senior Lecturer in Human Geography at The University of Liverpool. Her first book The Feminist Art of Walking (2025) is published by Pluto.
June-July ‘26 residency at Art & Talking by Blake Morris.
Blake Morris, PhD is a walking artist, independent scholar and research impact specialist based in Colima México. His artistic work and scholarly research focus on inviting people to walk together, often at a distance through the use of digital tools. Projects have included British Summer Time, an ongoing series of global sunrise walks, and the Arts Council England-funded project This is not a Slog, for which he created three site-specific walks for Ovalhouse Theatre (London). He was recently a resident social impact artist for Camino Al Arte in Atotonilco, México, where he produced the zine, “Caminatas Creativas de Atotonilco”, a walking guide to the local area. His book, Walking Networks: The Development of an Artistic Medium (London: Rowman and Littlefield International, 2020) offers an overview of the current field of walking art in the United Kingdom and proposes a definition of the medium. His writing can also be found in journals such as Green Letters: Studies in Ecocriticism, the International Journal of Tourism Cities, and Claire Hind and Clare Qualmann’s Ways to Wander publications (Axminster: Triarchy Press).
Sun 28 June ‘26 -11am Memory Mapping – Building a personal map of Chipping Norton 3pm Walk free
On 28 June, Blake will be working on creating a memory map of Chipping Norton based on local memories, stories and recollection. Please Drop by and add your stories/memories/personal landmarks to the map. Following this in the afternoon/early evening, he will be leading a walk using the map as a guide. Please feel free to drop in for the map and come to the group walk in the afternoon!
Sun 5 July ‘26 3pm - Chipping Norton Scratch Walks - an afternoon of walks in development, free
Blake invites you to join him to test out some walks in development. The walking exercises will be based on his discoveries during the first week of his residency. This scratch walking event will help further develop the walking provocations Blake will produce for the end of his residency.
Wednesday 8th July 7pm Talk. Progressively Cyborgian: The Resistant Joy of Walking free
Walking is a story-making medium, something more vital than ever in a world brimming with AI slop. Artificial intelligence can plan your walk (though not without potential peril) and provide (dubious) information on what you are seeing; it cannot, however, replace the experience of walking. Even as we become more progressively cyborgian, walking remains rooted physically in the world. This talk will look at the power of walking in an age of digital distraction, discussing how small-scale artistic walking practices can provide locations of deep engagement, critical resistance and collective joy.
Sun 12 July ‘26 11 am Creative Walks of Chipping Norton - a brief walking guide, free
A public sharing of the creative walks for Chipping Norton developed over the course of Blake’s residency. Join us for walks celebrating the memories, stories and ideas the people of Chipping Norton shared with Blake and see how they translate into walks.
Sat September 5th ‘26 12 noon Cosmic Surfer artist’s walk by Pato Bosich 45min, free meet at Art & Talking. A walk about Pato’s work, and Jimi Hendrix imaginary and music.
Sun October 4th ‘26, 12pm Bridge into the Unknown Walk&Talk by Scott Schwager Approx. 90 minutes, free, meet at the art centre.
How do we get from what we know to what we don’t? What can we see past what’s familiar? What information and assumptions do we have? Do our interests, friends, cultural values, political beliefs and the media influence this? On this walk we will explore the unknown through a loosely planned path around Chipping Norton and its outskirts.
Starting at Art&Talking, we will walk through ‘Snells’ a new art piece by Scott Schwager made for his exhibition The Far Side of the Ridge. Snell’s Law in physics describes how light bends passing through a surface between two different materials, such as air and water. Snell’s Window is a circular underwater view such as a fish has of the world above water. From the art piece ‘Snells’, we will make a Walk&Talk around Chipping Norton.
Sat October 10th ‘26, 2pm - Lost and Found Walk&Talk by Scott Schwager Approx. 90 minutes, free, meet at the art centre.
This Walk&Talk explores the idea of Lost&Found, a topic evoking many notions from the physical space to what it can mean beyond for the walkers who gather for Walk&Talks. While walking, we will look for traces of what’s lost in the physical environment and beyond.
For example, what fossils, ferns and mounds can we find? Where were the castles, ancient trees and waters ? What are the moods, pace, values and way of interacting being lost as we change as artists, creatives and other walkers and as society evolves?
In making this Walk&Talk, we will look for ideas of other paths to futurise potential scenarios where we can find things lost.
This walk explores social, political and cultural issues of significance in society today. It considers, for example, what ways are there to find time for leisure, conversations and crafts in a world prone to social media scrolling, clicks and ai ?
Starting from the exhibition at the Art Centre exhibition and this collection of thoughts we will walk around Chipping Norton’s historic and present day environs.