A month ago, I flew back to Edmonton, first to celebrate Canadian Thanksgiving with friends and then to give the keynote address at the Attuning to Climate: Walking, Listening, Acting symposium organized by Dr. Sheena Wilson and Just Powers in partnership with the City of Edmonton. One of the outputs of our SSHRC grant, Walking the Talk: Climate Moves, the symposium gave City of Edmonton employees and University of Alberta faculty and students a chance to think together about the different ways that we each process, and seek to address, a changing climate through our various disciplines.

My keynote address, “Walking as a Climate Move,” took place at City Hall and addressed methodologies of walking- in my pedagogy, in my own artistic practice, and in my work with Sheena as we seek to think differently to better approach a wicked problem like climate change. This isn’t my usual audience for a talk, so I was thrilled that so many City employees, whose mandate is to make every decision a climate decision, seemed to really resonate with what I shared.

The panels and activities that followed my keynote included speakers from the City’s climate task force, creative practitioners sharing about how walking and listening inform their research, and a variety of embodied learning activities, from guided walks in the River Valley by local Indigenous leaders to a workshop in bilateral drawing.

I was honored to have the opportunity to install my Winter Walking 8-channel sound piece as part of the symposium, sharing it with listeners back in the place where I made it. I invited participants to respond to some questions about climate learnings, and those became part of the installation as well.

Being together in Edmonton for ten days also gave Sheena and me the chance to think about next steps in this work: doing more writing and thinking together, organizing regular walks and learning activities for City employees, bringing different knowledge holders together for a book project, and dreaming of future possibilities.