4 April 2025 | Open graphic walkshop for drawing on the move

On April 4th, 2025, a group of Padua residents and students participated in an innovative “graphic walkshop” that combined walking through the city with creative drawing and writing exercises. The event, titled “Walking with the City,” was held by Tânia Cardoso and Giada Peterle as part of the Mohu-based Paduan unit of the WALC research project funded by the European Union (Walking Landscapes of Urban Cultures – Next Generation EU – PRIN PNRR 2022, Project code: P2022X5L8B, CUP: J53D2301655001).

The walkshop promoted an inclusive approach to co-producing knowledge about urban landscapes through movement and collective storytelling. “Rather than thinking of the walker as a solitary figure, we claim the act of walking as a generative social event, where more-than-human bodies, voices, and stories emerge together,” explained the organizers.

Participants gathered at Piazzale Stazione FS and embarked on a 5km barrier-free pathway through Padua. Along the way, they engaged in drawing exercises using notebooks, pens, markers and pencils to visually capture the narrative lines composing the city’s urban stories.

No prior graphic skills were required, making the walkshop accessible to all. By drawing while walking, participants were able to perceive their surroundings and document their everyday urbanscapes through an unusual creative lens.

The materials produced will be used for further research and dissemination purposes connected to the WALC project, which aims to study the walking landscapes of urban cultures from different disciplinary and social perspectives. A short comic-book story will be released starting from the collective storytelling experience of the graphic walkshop and inspired by participants voices.

Overall, the “Walking with the City” event provided Padua’s community with an innovative way to actively engage with and re-imagine their urban environment and mobile practices through an immersive, multi-sensory and narrative experience.