A film by Rosana Cade, Claire Nolan, and Charlie Cauchi, produced by Sally Rose in response to Rosana's live work: Walking:Holding.

Performance art and mobile technology converge in 'Walking:Holding', a creative documentary exploring intimacy, identity and vulnerability in urban public spaces.

Using the concept of holding a stranger’s hand whilst walking through a town, this experimental documentary asks how our sense of identity is informed and affected through interaction with others, and where and why people feel vulnerable in public.

Shot entirely on i-Phones, the footage has all been captured through documenting a tour of Rosana Cade’s award-winning interactive performance project ‘Walking:Holding’ to 6 towns across the UK, beginning in June 2016 just after the Brexit referendum, and finishing the week Donald Trump was first elected President of the United States of America in November 2016. The performance of Walking:Holding invites solo audience members to embark on a carefully curated route through a town whilst holding hands with a series of very different local participants.

Filming took place in Reading, Colchester, Leith, Stoke-on-Trent, Doncaster and Leeds. Using the framework of the performance as inspiration the film takes the viewer on a journey through the streets, parks, alleyways and shopping centres that make up these towns, giving them the perspective of a live walker. Our companions on these walks are the voices we hear from a series of intimate interviews and conversations with the participants. Over the course of the film these interweave to offer layered and moving reflections on intimacy, connection, being and being seen in urban public spaces across the UK. 

​"Everyone acknowledged the astute provocation in Cade's seemingly simple concept, with its flesh and blood challenge to prejudices and its honouring of individuals and their differences."
– Mary Brennan, The Herald