Walking and the Art of Public Space: Alisa Oleva on Cities, Belonging & Nuart Aberdeen

Walking can be much more than getting from A to B. In this interview from Nuart Aberdeen, walking artist Alisa Oleva talks about how she turns walks through the city into a form of art and a way of seeing places differently. Alisa describes one-to-one walks with people who are new to a city, helping them explore ideas of home and belonging through everyday routes. She talks about blindfolded walks, long group walks that repeat the same path for hours, and workshops where people try simple exercises like walking differently, touching surfaces or noticing small details. She also explains how she spends time “deep hanging out” in neighbourhoods. She connects her work to ideas from performance art, psychogeography and parkour. Especially the idea of “desire lines”, the paths people make when they don’t follow the official route. Contents 00:00 – Walking as an art practice 01:50 – What it feels like on a walk 05:00 – Preparing a walk in a new city 07:30 – Long-term projects, deep hanging out and working with strangers 10:20 – Simultaneous distant walks (Mariupol and beyond) 12:10 – Covid, virtual walks and “let me be your eyes” 14:30 – Migration, London and how the practice began 18:30 – Parkour, desire lines and small acts of disobedience in the city 21:20 – Performance, liveness and walking scores #walkingart #publicart #psychogeography #Nuart #streetart #AlisaOleva #cityasstudio #liveart #walking