The 2nd intervention involving walking around campus backwards and standing still on a street corner

1. Intervention 2
Power &
Correct Use of Space
Suna & Adam
21/10/2013

2. CHALLENGE 1: Walking backwards on campus
The Oscar-winning video footage!

3. CHALLENGE 1:
Walking backwards on campus
Time: around 6pm
Location: Geography floor 3 Munrow Sports Centre 
Uni Centre Square  Guild of Students

4. Walking Backwards- Suna’s Experience
• What do you notice about the world around you?
-At the time Not much! Focusing on walking without crashing into people.
-In some spaces, few students passing by (near Munrow gym) but large clusters of students in others (Uni centre area)- felt more self-aware
in the more crowded spaces.
-The world isn’t designed for people to walk backwards- we need to see in the direction or we are going- there are too many obstacleshuman and inanimate- to walk in this way regularly!
• How do you feel standing there?
-Disorientated- wind kept blowing in my face and I kept moving my hair out of the way and looking at my feet which distracted me and
resulted in me almost crashing into a bollard and various students! Fortunately it wasn’t raining though
-Confused- am I allowed to walk backwards but keep looking back? Or is that cheating? It made me feel like I was driving a car and
reversing it!
-Way too happy- really enjoyed this challenge. Giggled for quite a lot of it and the for the other half I tried to be quite casual about it as if
there wasn’t a reason why anyone should look at me funnily. I would happily do this again (if I had a “reason” to anyway)
• How do other pedestrians respond to you?
- Mixed reactions- sometimes I looked for a reaction and was disappointed that they hadn’t really noticed. Other people pulled really
amusing facial expressions which was great to see. I love challenging the status quo and making people think I’m being weird, it’s quite fun
and takes you out of your comfort zone.

5. CHALLENGE 2: Standing on a street corner
Time: around 6.30pm
Location: Edgbaston Park Rd
(Outside the Guild of Students
opposite King Edward’s School)
Weather: slightly cold and humid,
but not raining

6. Street Corner Standing - Adam’s Experience
• What do you notice about the world around you?
-Everything is moving quite slowly- more aware of people walking up to me and focus mostly on the people
not the environment.
• How do you feel standing there?
-Self conscious- thinking about what other people thought of me. Then after 2 minutes I felt super relaxed
and aware as I focused more on my senses and surroundings.
• How do other pedestrians respond to you?
-Other pedestrians mostly went on with their lives; a few catches of eye contact with one woman, otherwise
fairly unreactive. No confused looks.