This walk, hosted by the Bata Shoe Museum, took inspiration from recent public debates about street and place names and who or what they commemorate. These conversations have highlighted how these everyday markers quietly shape peoples sense of identity, belonging, and exclusion. The many names we pass by without a second thought can tell powerful stories about a city’s past and what is valued in official narratives.
Taking up Michel de Certeau’s idea that street names as the most visible “texts” of a city, and that walking is one way to compose or read these texts, participants explored the streets surrounding the Bata Shoe Museum, learned the meanings behind their names and considered what these names reveal about the Annex neighbourhood, its histories, and its wider geographical, historical, social and political connections.
After the walk, we gathered back at the museum for a collaborative, book-club-style discussion, sharing what we “read” along the way and reflecting on how public naming shapes the stories our city tells.
Photos by Ellie Chesnutt.
