Clare Qualmann
Associate Professor
Senior Lecturer CPAD, Performing Arts
Department of Music, Writing & Performance , School Of Arts And Creative Industries
Clare Qualmann co-leads the BA (Hons) Drama, Applied Theatre and Performance degree and teaches across levels on the programme. Her teaching draws on her research and practice interests in site-specific performance, walking, participatory practice, live art and performance art.
Additionally, she works across the Performing Arts area as impact champion, supporting colleagues’ practice-as-research in relation to dissemination, public engagement, evaluation and impact.
Areas Of Interest
- Site-Specific Practice
- Participatory Performance
- Live Art
- Walking
OVERVIEW
Clare Qualmann is an artist/researcher with an interdisciplinary performance based practice. From a background in the visual arts her work engages a range of participatory methods, and a range of media to explore and reveal the overlooked - the politics and potentials of everyday life.
Clare co-leads the BA (Hons) Drama, Applied Theatre and Performance teaching projects that introduce site-specific practice, participatory performance, live art and performance art.
CURRENT RESEARCH
From 2012 - 2015 Clare led an AHRC funded project to develop the Walking Artists Network, an international forum for the use of walking in creative practice, alongside a series of walking research group meetings.
She continues to facilitate the network, alongside her own projects that use walking as process, method and outcome for instigating and investigating exchanges between people and places.
Commissions include:
- "Walkwalkwalk: stories from the Bethnal Green archive" (2010)
- A permanent installation of architectural text-works in Bethnal Green Old Town Hall, Perambulator (2014)
- A participatory performance/walking project (with prams) for Deveron Arts in Huntly (Aberdeenshire) and
- Daylighting (2018) a programme of events exploring ways to challenge existing archives and systems of knowledge, change narratives and amplify new voices through art and activism commissioned by Wellcome Collection.
Ongoing projects
Ongoing projects include East End Jam (2015 -) a collaborative walking, foraging and jam making project originally commissioned by the London Legacy Development Corporation.
The project instigates an active, activist and creative way to interact with a place - exploring even the most unpromising seeming locations in relation to their edibility.
Based in the East End of London we use walking, foraging, picking, gleaning, preserving, cooking and eating as processes to map the edible city - provoking embodied explorations of urban food, access, nature in the city, and the free use of common resources.
PUBLICATIONS
Texts
2021
East End Jam: urban foraging as participatory multi-sensory cartography (chapter, co-authored, forthcoming) in Urban Natures: Making Visible, (Re)Connecting and (Re)Politicising, eds. Edwards, F., Nilstad Pettersen, I, and Popartan, L.
2021
She Walked (chapter, co-authored, forthcoming), in 'A New Poetics of Space: Literary Walks in Times of Pandemics and Climate Crisis.' eds. Jeffery, L., Angelaki, V., Bloomsbury
2021
Pram Naps (chapter, forthcoming) in ‘Mothering, Time and Temporalities eds. Colls, C. McGiven, A., Routledge
2020
Chip Walk (chapter, co-authored) in 'Walking Bodies', eds. Smith, P, Hind. C., Billinghurst, H., Triarchy Press
2018
Ways to Wander the Gallery, (book, co-edited) Triarchy Press
2017
Walking Women (study room guide, co-edited) Live Art Development Agency
2017
The artist in the library (article) in Performance Research Journal 'On Libraries' Vol. 22, issue 1.
2016
Perambulator (article) 'Studies in the Maternal', Volume 8, Issue 2, Performing Everyday Maternal Practice
2015
Ways to Wander, (book, co-edited) Triarchy Press, Axminster
2013
Walking and Talking East London (chapter co-authored) in 'Spaziergangswissenschaft in Praxis.' ed. Weisshaar, B., Jovis Verlag
2013
walkwalkwalk: Stories from the Bethnal Green Archive (article) in 'Selected Essays from the On Walking conference', University of Sunderland
2010
A-Z of Sustainable Materials: Activating learning in sustainable design: using a hands-on materials workshop to engage students, (case study) in 'Networks' Issue 11, pp. 46 - 50, ADM-HEA subject centre
2009
Creative Space; or Is There Room for Creativity? (article) in 'Investigations in University Teaching and Learning' vol. 5 (2) Spring 2009
2009
Spinning Stories: A walk about laundry, (pamphlet, co-authored), Site Projects, September
2009
walkwalkwalk: stories from the Exeter Archive, (book) Site Projects
2007
A Chip Shop Tour of E8 (chapter, co-authored) in 'E8 the heart of Hackney', Transition editions
Conference Presentations and Talks
2020
East End Jam: Urban Foraging as multi-sensory participatory cartography (joint paper with Amy Vogel) Anthropology and Geography: Dialogues Past, Present and Future, London, available online at https://youtu.be/9Twun4pBs2M
2019
Chip Walks: Prespes to Plymouth (co-authored paper), Walking's New Movement, Plymouth
2019
East End Jam, (talk and taste) Something Held in the Mouth, Folkestone, available online at https://youtu.be/iT0tWWR2Xe0
2019
East End Jam as Ecotopia (talk and taste) Ecotopias: Imagining Ecological Utopias, London
2019
Chip Walks, (co-authored paper) Made of Walking, Prespes, Greece
2017
Making the Landscape Sing: walking the map and mapping the walk (invited talk) Living Maps, London
2016
Perambulator (artist's talk) Walking Women, Forest Fringe, Edinburgh
2016
Perambulator (artist's talk) Motherhood & Live Art, Edge Hill University
2015
Perambulator (paper) The Motherhood and Creative Practice conference, London South Bank University
2013
Walkwalkwalk: Stories from the Bethnal Green Archive (paper) On Walking, University of Sunderland
2011
The Artist in the Library (paper) The Artist in the Library Symposium, University of East London
Curatorial
2018
Daylighting, co-curated with Amy Sharrocks and Madeleine Hodge, Wellcome Collection, October
2016
Walking Women, co-curated with Amy Sharrocks, Somerset House, London & Forest Fringe, Edinburgh July-August
Exhibitions
2018
Saunter Trek Escort Parade, group show, Fluxus Factory and Queens Museum, New York, USA, September
2018
Labors: An Exhibition Exploring the Complexities of Motherhood, group show, Pearl Conard Gallery, Ohio, USA, February
2015
Gossip and Nonsense, duo show, The Bank Gallery, Cass School of Art, London, December
2013-2014
Walk On: 40 years of walking art, group show, Pitzhanger Manor Gallery, Northern Gallery of Contemporary Art, MAC Birmingham, Plymouth City Museum and Gallery
2009
Flash Company, group show, Cecil Sharp House, London, Apr - June
2008
walkwalkwalk: stories from the Exeter archive, offsite project, Exeter Central Station, Spacex Gallery, Exeter, April - September
2007
E8 the heart of Hackney, group show, Transition London, June - July
2007
Mapping, group show, Bury Art Gallery, April - June
Events & Performances
2015-20
East End Jam, walks, workshops and live art events, Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, Gayhurst Community School, Amber Court Sheltered Housing, Wilton Estate Community Garden
2018
Perambulator, participatory walk, Flux Factory, New York, USA, September
2015
Gossip and Nonsense, performance and live letterpress print room, The Bank Gallery, Cass School of Art, London, December
2014
Renaissance Rumours and Chinese Whispers, performance, Somerset House, Inside Out festival, King's College London
2014
Perambulator Parade & Baby Slow Marathon, Deveron Arts, Huntly, Scotland, May
2012
Perambulator, participatory walk, part of 'Chain' at Lewisham Art House, 24 May
2010
Spinning Stories, a walk about laundry, with Emily Butterworth, London, July
2010
Darned Memory, a walk around memory, mending and Millbank, London, March
2009
The Nightwash laundry chorus, London, October
2008
Night walk Marsh Barton, part of walkwalkwalk: stories from the Exeter archive, April
2006
walkwalkwalk at Camden Arts Centre, September
2005 - 2009
Nine night walks, including The Musical, Points of Non-Interest and Things that have gone, walkwalkwalk, London
FUNDING
- AHRC Research Networks 2012-2015 Footwork: The Walking Artists Network as Mobile Community (CoI then PI)
- AHRC Covid Response 2021-2022 Walking Publics Walking Arts (CoI)
TEACHING
MODULES
- Final Practical Project
- Performing the City
- Theatre and Imagination
Scholarly activities
- Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
Publications
The last four years of publications can be viewed below.
Full publications list
Visit the research repository to view a full list of publications
- Perambulator in: Qualmann, C.Encyclopaedia of Mobilities. Edward Elgar Publishing
- An agenda for creative practice in the new mobilities paradigm Mobilities. 18 (3), pp. 349-373. https://doi.org/10.1080/17450101.2022.2136996
- East End Jam: A Multi-Sensory Urban Foraging Artwork in: Qualmann, C. and Vogel, A.Urban Natures: Living the More-than-Human City. Berghahn Books, pp.88-104
- Artists’ Mapping under COVID-19: Work from the Walk Create Gallery Living Maps Review. (13)
- She Walked to Sculpt, Interlope, Wrap, Lick & Squeeze Into Space Green Letters: Studies in Ecocriticism. 26 (3), pp. 272-280. https://doi.org/10.1080/14688417.2022.2114521
- Chip Walks in: Ramsden, H. and Qualmann, C.Walking Bodies. Triarchy Press
- Letter from the Guest Editor CSPA Quarterly. 26