Simon King
- Academic Skills tutor
Simon is a writer and walking arts researcher. In 2015, he co-founded the student-led Walkative Society which will be celebrated in an upcoming RCA library residency.
Simon is a part-time (0.4) Academic Skills & EAP tutor who works principally between Kensington and Battersea campuses. In 2023–24, his teaching comprises workshops (the series ‘English with Confidence’), embedded support via consultation with programme leaders, and one-to-one tutorials.
More information
Research interests
As a practice-led walking arts researcher at Birkbeck, University of London, Simon’s research investigates the critical and creative infrastructures of walking arts practice in relation to walking, dialogue, and social engagement.
Practice
Along with other walking arts ventures, Simon works collaboratively with the artist Corinne Noble to create socially-engaged, ‘non-heritage’ urban walking tours that have an overarching theme or narrative and a distinctive method of mapping i.e., bringing in to play metaphorical and literal correspondences and archival ephemera that includes old maps, postcards, family photographs and literary sources.
Publications, exhibitions, other outcomes
Publications
King, S. and Noble C. (2024). Court Circular, SE5. In: Joseph-Lester, J. Kahane, A. King, S. and Leslie, E., eds., Walking in Cities: Navigating Post-Pandemic Urban Environments, London: Routledge, pp. 268-285.
Joseph-Lester, J. and King, S. (2023). Parallel Urbanisms, Los Angeles in Whitechapel. London: Plaintiff Press.
Bamford, N. and King, S. (2023). Bringing into conversation two walking practices to explore the palimpsest of space. Walking as Research Practice, Special Issue WARP x Soapbox Journal, pp. 187-222.
Chappell, E. King, S. Baron-Bonarjee, D. (2021) The Observers Observed: Reflections on making a film, 'The Day War Broke Out', with the Mass Observation Archive, Brief Encounters, Vol. 5 No. 1, pp. 88 -103
Joseph-Lester, J. and King, S. (2021). Walking cities in lockdown, Art & the Public Sphere, Volume 9 Numbers 1 & 2. Intellect Books: pp. 29-38.
King, S. and Noble, C. (2020). Walking with Correspondence. In: Billinghurst, H., Hind, C. and Smith, P, eds., Walking Bodies: Papers, Provocations, Actions. Exeter: Triarchy Press, pp. 275-289.
Joseph-Lester, J. King, S. Blier-Carruthers, A. and Bottazzi R., eds., (2020). Walking Cities: London, 2nd edition. London: Routledge, pp. 268-285.
King, S. (2018) Elephant memory. In Joseph-Lester, J. Klein, N.M. King, S. and Edwards, H. eds., Journal of Writing in Creative Practice, Volume 10 Number 2, Intellect Books: pp. 249-266.
Exhibition
(2024) ‘An Attempt at Exhausting a Postcard in Paris’ – A guided walk as part of the group exhibition Spaces of Coalescence held at the Atelier Ouverte, Paris.
External collaboration and activity
Simon is a part of the RCA SoAH research cluster affiliated to the EU-funded consortium SpaceX (Spatial Practices in Art and Architecture for Empathetic Exchange). As a contribution to his 2024 secondment in Portugal he recently contributed a walking-based research activity to a project (‘Untold Climate Stories’) alongside lead RCA researcher Marisa Ferreira in Covas do Barosso.