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WS stands for Walkscapes, an urban and collaborative publishing platform founded in 2016 by Gianni Villa (FR, 1990) and Wanling Chang (TW, 1987) and based in Brussels. WS aims, through publication of big collective Magazines and small project Zines, to create a network for anyone — artist, photographer, poet, architect, urbanist, bookseller — who likes to wander around the city.
WS Lebeau
Gianni Villa, Valentin Bansac, Wanling Chang
“ For its first exhibition, Walkscapes aims to present, in Espace Lebeau in Brussels, 3 projects that question the relation between nature, architecture and urban territories : WS110 Greenhouse Territories by Valentin Bansac (FR, 1991), about the productive landscapes of Westland in the Netherlands ; WS106 City Plants by Gianni Villa, a collection of 16 postcards from London, Barcelona, Tokyo & Taipei about different forms of urban greenery ; WS107 Posutomodan by Gianni Villa, about Japanese postmodern monuments of Tokyo, Osaka & Fukuoka.”
2023
Exhibition, A0 & A4 prints
Pictures by Alice Loumeau, Pauline Colleu, Valentin Bansac
WS111
More Animal Drawings
Wanling Chang
“The presentation brings together drawings of some of the favourite animals of Chang's friends and colleagues. Chang's work on paper, and more specifically her drawings of animals, first came to attention through the self-published Animals that I drew (2019). Right away we notice that the past three years offered little to no improvement in the drawing department.”
2022, A6, 32 pages, 20 copies
8€ (+ shipping costs)
contact@walkscapes.net
WS110
Greenhouse Territories
Valentin Bansac
“The Westland is located in South Holland and is referred to as the greenhouse capital of the Netherlands. In a country where half of the land is used for agriculture, it hosts extensive areas of repetitive and overscaled glass buildings. This series observes the manifestation of the future of agricultural production, an anti-urban landscape that produces food and flowers in industrial quantities with artificial light.”
2022, 21x27cm, 48 pages, 50 copies
12€ (+ shipping costs)
contact@walkscapes.net
WS109
Unhomed
Sepideh Farvardin
“When I wander around cities that I have not visited before, my thoughts get entangled with details that skip my eyes even in my hometowns. And it is at that moment when I embark on an intense journey of observation. Walking in the streets of Europe as a newcomer, my eyes began to follow objects that seemed left behind. Belongings which seemed to have been forgotten on streets and alleys. In reflection, I discovered, beneath this returning occurrence, a mutual condition between myself and my photograph subjects; a sense of displacement and lack of belonging.”
2022, A4, 52 pages, 20 copies
12€ (+ shipping costs)
contact@walkscapes.net
WS108
Beijing Outline
Anna Pierotello
“ After years of commuting across Beijing, and encountering millions of people in thousands of trips, I started wondering, where do they all come from? Where do they live? I knew that Beijing was big, but how big? Where does the city even stop? This is a book about where Beijing ends. It is an exploration to find out what the city looks like at the end of each of its metropolitan arteries. It is a report that takes into account time and distance. It is a collection of images captured throughout the winter of 2017. ”
2022, A5, 64 pages, 20 copies
12€ (+ shipping costs)
contact@walkscapes.net
WS107
Posutomodan
Gianni Villa
“ポストモダ, pronounced POSUTOMODAN, is the japanese term to name the postmodernist movement. It’s also the name of this book, a personal research I made between 2018 and 2019, while I was still living in Taipei. It includes a record of walks in search for postmodern buildings from Tokyo, Osaka and Fukuoka, as well as a collection of japanese songs produced during the same period : https://tinyurl.com/2zw8rh2j ”
2022, 12x18cm, 124 pages, 50 copies
12€ (+ shipping costs)
contact@walkscapes.net
WS106
City Plants
Gianni Villa
“16 postcards about plants in the city, the various shapes it can take, and beyond the simple copy of nature, the multiple roles it can play for local people : in London, garden palmtrees as an exotic escape ; in Barcelona, roses to bid farewell to beloved dead; in Taipei, weeds as a spontaneous resistance of nature to urban sprawl; In Tokyo, flowerpots as a domestic space in the megalopolis.”
2019, 10x15cm, 16 pages, 20 copies
5€ (+ shipping costs)
contact@walkscapes.net
WS105
A Travel In Two
Sofia Clementina Hosszufalussy
“Catching the train that from Moscow brings you to Vladivostok; sharing space, days and nights with random travellers. A travel between two is the reportage of this, of two friends and their trip to Siberia until the Baykal lake. A story told between Europe and Asia, pictures and drawings, you and me.”
2019, A5, 36 pages, 20 copies
8€ (+ shipping costs)
contact@walkscapes.net
WS104
Threshold
Wanling Chang
“Threshold is a photographic essay on the Khmer temples, a reflection on the form and the construction methods of these relics through images. Haunted by these sanctuaries upon her first visit to Thailand, Wanling Chang tends to have a better understanding of their forms and eventually the philosophy behind by working on the visual representation of an unspeakable perception.”
2019, A5, 32 pages, 20 copies
8€ (+ shipping costs)
contact@walkscapes.net
WS103
Animals That I Drew
Wanling Chang
“From an early age, my poor drawing skills had been a subject of mockery both at school and at home. For a long time, my clumsiness felt like a weakness, which I tried to hide. It wasn't until I reached adulthood that I realized technical skills and creativity are two different things altogether. What makes self-publishing so wonderful is how it embraces amateurism. We are free to show the obsessions few people care about. Amateurism won’t be an obstacle to any form of creation. I hope this book can amuse you.”
2019, A6, 40 pages, 40 copies
8€ (+ shipping costs)
contact@walkscapes.net
WS102
Missing
Wanling Chang
“Wanling Chang has been collecting missing posters over the span of 6 years, and she has now decided to make a book out of them. It’s a book about missing animals and objects, about images and the representation of things we hold dear, about the anxiety and the fear of loss, about absence.”
2018, A6, 96 pages, 20 copies
8€ (+ shipping costs)
contact@walkscapes.net
WS101
Palms
Gianni Villa
“ During my repeated visits to London, I noticed how many palm trees can be seen in front yards, despite the city less-than-ideal weather conditions. Upon visiting Kew Gardens, I figured out the reason behind this predilection for palm trees, in front of Edred John Henry Corner’s words: “Of all land plants, the palm is the most distinguished.” Palms documents the phantom of Imperialism, still visible throughout the common urban space, as well as in the exotic section of the Royal Botanic Gardens.”
2017, ½ A5, 28 pages, 20 copies
8€ (+ shipping costs)
contact@walkscapes.net
WS002
河邊
By the River
Five Wu, Jei Jan, Gianni Villa, Morgane Le Guilloux, Manuel Ortega, Wanling Chang
“The 河邊 issue aims to investigate the relationship between the city of Taipei and its lively riversides that encompass it. By highlighting its independence from both the urban fabric and the natural balance, it wishes to present a set of new connections that happen in the gap, between city, nature, infrastructure, and people.”
2018, A4, 64 pages, 50 copies
15€ (+ shipping costs)
contact@walkscapes.net
WS001
Périf
Ananay Arango, Florent Hajinazarian, Gabriel Henry, Gianni Villa, Melchior Tersen, Norida Ho, Odonchimeg Davaadorj, Quentin Strauss, Wanling Chang
“The PERIF issue is focused on the subject of the ring road and on all the themes it may encompass. Because it involves the question of boundaries, entrances and exits, this constructed limit says as much about the inside and outside of cities as about the means of going beyond them.”
2016, A4, 88 pages, 50 copies
15€ (+ shipping costs)
contact@walkscapes.net
Exhibitions
2023 Wiels Art Book Fair, BE
2023 Espace Lebeau, Bruxelles, BE
2023 P.A.G.E.S, Genève, CH
2022 Antwerp Academy Art Book Fair, BE
2022 Wiels Art Book Fair, BE
2022 Ghent Art Book Fair, BE
2019 Wiels Art Book Fair, BE
2019 Ghent Art Book Fair, BE
2018 Break Off, Taichung, TW
2017 FRAC PACA, Marseille, FR
2017 Génie d’Alex, Paris, FR
Statement
In his book Walkscapes, Italian architect Francesco Careri aims to define the act of walking as an aesthetic as well as a critical practice. He traces its roots all the way back to prehistoric times, from nomadic men exploring landscapes by foot to modern men experiencing the urban space and architectural landscapes in roaming around cities. Careri also points out how the act of walking was a turning point for three critical movements in the history of art: the passage from Dada to Surrealism, from the Lettrist International to the Situationist International, and from Minimalism Art to Land Art.
Fundamentally, for Careri, the act of walking, regardless of its invisibility of spatial definition, implies the transformation of a place and its meaning : “The mere physical presence of humans in an unmapped space, as well as the variations of perceptions they register while crossing it, already constitute forms of transformation of the landscape that—without leaving tangible signs—culturally
modify the meaning of space and therefore the space itself ”. Whether walking towards a destination or simply wandering around, the act of walking transmits both physical or invisible traces of human activities.
In modern times, it became almost impossible to have a full understanding of the complex urban space surrounding us, especially in metropolitan cities where all types of infrastructures - bridges, tunnels, highways - intertwined with urban constructions throughout history of the city. Therefore, Careri’s
definition has become a great inspiration to us in trying to return to more fundamental ways of moving: wouldn’t it be more adequate, then, to try to understand urban space based on one’s personal
and intimate perception through walking, even if it’s inevitably fragmental and partial?
Our curiosity was piqued by some indefinable and atypical urban territories, often created alongside construction of infrastructures, yet marginalized due to their location. Their particular nature
makes them seem to disappear within the city: on one hand, they stop having a role or function for people living around them ; on the other hand, they also become invisible, which not only protects
them temporarily from city development and real estate dynamics, but also allow them to become something else.
For many, those spaces are indefinite, dysfunctional, useless. For us, they are poetic, peculiar and full of potentialities, as long as you dare to take a closer look. We call them “Walkscapes”, and they are the main topic we want to investigate with our WS platform.
© Walkscapes
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