Critical Reflections: Walking and Thinking in the Presence of Others

At the end of March, London College of Fashion (LCF) hosted the annual IFFTI conference entitled Forming Futures. As part of the programme, Centre for Sustainable Fashion (CSF) proposed a Walking Conversation – an informal walk around our LCF East Bank Campus as a moment to reflect, share and connect with visitors and colleagues.  

Participants on CSF's 'Walking Conversation' during the 'Forming Futures' IFFTI conference at LCF, March 2025.

It was scheduled for Friday, a full stop to a full conference programme. But to describe this walk as a full stop is erroneous. It suggests the end of something. That the point has been made and that there’s nothing more to say. The future is formed. Which will never be the case. Below are some fleeting reflections on this walk, which touch upon both the potential of walking as an experimental pedagogy and as a space in which critical questions about how we might fashion new ways of thinking are asked. This is especially pertinent to CSF’s thinking about fashion education as a form of ‘the commons’. It draws on Isabelle Stengers’ work on Cosmopolitics.  

A walk is an opening, an invitation for more. A walk, despite its time bound nature, is continuous, a state of ongoingness, an action, a verb. It is this ongoingness which appeals to me both personally and professionally. A walk creates a space not about answers but about thinking, being, talking, moving, listening, feeling. There is (on walks) and was (on this walk), spontaneity, confusion (which way shall we go, will we become stuck?), connection, joy, humour, awkwardness and a feeling of the unknown, of the possible.  

A walk speaks to Isabelle Stengers’ Cosmopolitical Proposal and it’s call to ‘slow down’ and ‘think in the presence of others’ (2005). As we (at CSF) explore what fashion education for sustainability underpinned by a commitment to justice and equity looks like, Stenger’s work encourages reflection on how new forms of learning and knowing might emerge. Equality is not a pre-given state. It is an ongoing process of making visible and attending to the plurality of agencies and needs of both humans and more-than-humans. What, she encourages us to think about, are the consequences of making visible other ways of knowing and the messiness and challenge that comes with that. In a fashion system/culture of endless to do lists, calls for solutions, measurements, and deadlines, a walk offers a rare opportunity for thinking about our practice of walking, while walking and beyond walking.  

Participants on CSF's 'Walking Conversation' during the IFFTI conference. Photo by Dhruv Prakash.

Participants on CSF's 'Walking Conversation' during the IFFTI conference. Photo by Dhruv Prakash.

Participants on CSF's 'Walking Conversation' during the IFFTI conference. Photo by Dhruv Prakash.

Participants on CSF's 'Walking Conversation' during the IFFTI conference. Photo by Dhruv Prakash.

While the appeal of walking is the possibility and the potential for critical reflection, a walk is still a sum of its parts. Of participants and their incomplete knowledges, their moods, and emotions. Of place, the terrain, the weather, the sounds. How much prompting is required? What is the structure of time and direction? I favoured looseness. Slowness. Weirdly, this felt like a risk. Was the time too loose, too open, too purposeless? Too stark a difference to our working norms? Into my pockets I stuffed some prompts - a way of holding the group together? A mitigation strategy in case of silence or discomfort? Or useful, to bring focus? Stengers’ reassures, to ‘think in the presence of others’ is slow and messy. It is, to complete the full title of her works – a ‘speculative adventure’ – a space for new questions to emerge. It is this potential that a walk holds for me.  

Yet to be true to Stengers’ call, is to problematise this walk. Embedded in Stengers’ call for collective thinking is the inclusion of those who would ‘be likely to be disqualified’. Holding this lightly, questions emerge. How might the river be included as an active agent in provoking new ways of thinking? Rather than just being part of the scenery through which we walked. What about the bats, by whose homes we stopped by, while discussing the human homes edging the paths where we walked. How can others be included in academic events, when costly tickets are required and membership to the academy is expected? And how does that sit, with those of us, walking and talking about a Stratford here (E20) and there (E15)? If fashion education is a form of commons, then who is in the commons and who is not? To walk and ‘think in the presence of others’ is then to question our knowledge and our authority. Our intention and our ideas about how we might create a more just common world or fashion system.  

Echo Bat Box found along the walk in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, Stratford.

Common reeds growing by the River Lea next to a bird breeding area, in East Bank, Stratford.

Observing the flora in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, Stratford, London.

Close up of a flower emerging from the undergrowth in spring, in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park..

Observing the flora in the surrounding built and natural environment in London's Blossom Garden.

Observing LCF East Bank campus and its built surrounds next to the River Lea and vegetation.

It troubles the assumptions of a universal us or we. What does it mean to say (as I did in the event blurb) that we (those on the walk) can ideate ways fashion education can nurture fashion practices that allow for human and planetary flourishing? If ‘human and planetary flourishing’ is the goal, how can the planet itself, and the humans whose livelihoods and existences are fundamentally shaped by the fashion industry, truly be present and active in the ideation process? As, I mentioned earlier, what about the bats, the rivers, the communities through which we walked? Thinking with Stengers’ asks me (we?) to confront the limitations of this group (or indeed, any group) to define flourishing for all. This, in turn, only forefronts the need for more expansive participation. For more criticality. More reflexivity. And ultimately, for more care.  

Picking back up on the theme of ongoingness, this walk was part of a series of CSF walks exploring walking as an experimental methodology for critical and collective fashion practice. Inspired by the ‘de-fashion walk’ organised by Sophie Barr and Sarah May in 2023, and the walking conversation from CSF’s Imagining Possibilities Festival last year. We were accompanied on this walk by sound artist Beth Robertson who will produce a soundwork to sit alongside it. We are developing our next walk exploring the possibility of Hope.  

If you would like to create your own community for exploring the teaching and learning of fashion in a more than human world and nurture ‘community ready’ learners, we invite you to our Imagining Possibilities for Fashion Education: A Walking Conversation resource.  

Reference: 

Stengers, Isabelle (2005). The cosmopolitical proposal. In Bruno Latour & Peter Weibel, Making Things Public: Atmospheres of Democracy. Mit Press (Ma). pp. 994-1003.