In this four-part seminar, learn how to research and create a walking tour of your own design.
COURSE DESCRIPTION
Simply put, walking takes us places. And if we’re paying attention, we’ll see that these places are infused with stories—myths and fictions, personal histories, and narratives much, much larger than ourselves. Join Kamau Ware, award-winning artist, storyteller, and founder of the Black Gotham Experience—which uses art and walking tours to illustrate the impact of the African Diaspora in the U.S.—for a four-part workshop on the art of the walk. Guided by Kamau and accompanied by an intimate group of peers, you’ll learn to research and create a walking tour of your own design. Intended for the creative, nerdy, spiritual, or aesthetic-kinesthetic thinkers, this online course will map the process of designing an intentional walk and reflect on what it means to walk in community. By the end of our time together, you’ll have created a 15- to 60-minute walk that you can share with friends, family, or perhaps even similarly curious strangers.
SYLLABUS AT A GLANCE
There are four total sessions included in this purchase, each lasting for 1.5 hours on four Wednesdays, beginning November 18 (skipping November 25).
Session 1 (Wednesday, 11/18, 5–6:30 PM ET): On walking
Session 2 (Wednesday, 12/2, 5–6:30 PM ET): About art
Session 3 (Wednesday, 12/9, 5–6:30 PM ET): Rotations
Session 4 (Wednesday, 12/16, 5–6:30 PM ET): New circles
ATLAS OBSCURA ONLINE COURSES
Our online courses offer opportunities for participants to emerge with new skills, knowledge, connections, and perspectives through multi-session classes designed and taught by expert instructors. Courses can take one of two forms: Seminars are intimate, interactive classes—capped at nine to 20 students—exploring topics and crafts through discussion, workshops, assignments, and in-class activities. We also offer lecture series that can be attended live, or viewed a time that works for you for up to one week after they’ve aired.
To learn more about our current course offerings, please visit www.atlasobscura.com/online-courses.
Once registered, you can access the Zoom room for this experience through your confirmation email or Eventbrite account.
Kamau Ware is an award-winning visual artist and storyteller based in New York City. Kamau creates new narratives about the African Diaspora’s history through walks, photography, films, exhibitions, and events. He founded the Black Gotham Experience (BGX) in 2010 to illustrate the impact of the African Diaspora through art and walking tours that ask participants to embody historic figures through imagination and empathy. The Black Gotham Experience has been in residence in the Seaport District of Lower Manhattan since 2017, serving as a gallery, event space, and visitor’s center for walking tours. It is also where contemporary artifacts are being created that visualize the rise and fall of the Transatlantic Slave Trade as one global epic from the Black perspective that will populate a graphic novel and exhibition series.
Through his visual storytelling, Kamau has become a sought after voice, an artist / historian illustrating the erased presence of Black people in the collective consciousness and a creative who fuses aesthetics into shared experiences. Kamau has been commissioned to create original works by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, BRIC Media, the Mile Long Opera, and the first Black history walking tour of New York City Hall by the New York City Public Design Commission. Kamau is currently working on new works for the Apollo Theater, Think Chinatown, Open House New York, and The Shed. Kamau has spoken at SXSW, Yale University, John Hopkins University, the Municipal Archive in Amsterdam, the Public Theater, the Apple flagship store, and has been featured in The Atlantic, The New York Times, Atlas Obscura, Hyperallergic, Curbed, ABC, and NBC. You can follow him @kamauware.
This is an interactive, small-group, seminar-style course that will meet on Wednesdays over Zoom. Students will be invited to participate in discussions, workshop their projects, and receive feedback from the course instructor. There will be assigned reading, making, and walking between each class.
You'll need a smart phone, notebook, writing utensil, and comfortable shoes.
There are 20 spots available on this experience.
