Autumn has definitively arrived and with it comes the beginning of night walking season. For four years now we at Walkspace have marked the transition into the dark half of the year by walking the Stirchley Skull on Halloween night. The Stirchley Skull was created by superimposing a skull image on a map of the neighbourhood and then walking the outline in the real world. Last year we mixed things up by walking “widdershins” and this year we’re doing something different again.
We are thrilled to be teaming up with visual arts duo Hipkiss and Graney who will be leading a skull mask decorating workshop the weekend before the walk. Participants will get to design their own skull mask to wear on the walk and to keep for future skull walks. Hipkiss and Graney are famed throughout the realm of Mercia for their inventive and colourful community events inspired by folklore, nature and magic, and we couldn’t think of better collaborators for this spooky celebration. See below to book your place.
As ever the walk itself is open to all whether you take part in the workshop or not. Join us on Thursday 31st October at 7:30pm outside Stirchley Library on Bournville Lane. This is a gentle circular route lasting no more than 90 minutes. The terrain will mostly be pavement and roads, with a bit of grass and a gravelly track. Prepare for muddy conditions and the first gales of winter. The walk will go ahead whatever the weather. The walk is a free event with no need to book.
The skull mask workshop takes place on Saturday 26th October at 3pm. If you’d like to attend please email: hipkissandgraney@outlook.com to book your place. The workshop costs £5 and takes place at South Birmingham Studios, 29B Maryvale Road, Stirchley, Birmingham, B30 2DA.
Bonus Skulls!
If you can’t make it to Stirchley on the 31st then you can always create your own neighbourhood skull walk wherever you happen to live. In fact “Walk Your Neighbourhood Skull This Halloween” has just been published as a walk recipe in the fantastic new collection “Night Time Economy” by Floodgate Press.
In this all-new collection of work from some of the West Midlands’ leading writers, you’ll find stories of forlorn 3am hopes and of nocturnal revelations. Of celebrations and hauntings. Of the lost and the found. Of the urban and the urbane. Of the all too real And the all too unreal.
As well as the skull walk recipe by Andy Howlett, the collection also features Walkspace member Josh Allen’s “At the Dog and Partridge” about a notorious lost pub in Selly Oak, along with lots of great short fiction and creative non-fiction. It’s a fantastic collection and the perfect Halloween gift.
