Romantic Urban Narratives

Territories Imagined: International Perspectives (or TRIP for short) is the UK’s leading festival of psycho-geography and takes place at Manchester’s Metropolitan University from the 19 -21 June 2008.

Andrew Stuck from Rethinking Cities will be presenting a paper in which he explores romantic urban narratives from post cards sent via the Romantic Ribbons initiative.

Over the last two years, Rethinking Cities has been promoting the Romantic Ribbons initiative, to map romantic urban places and encourage the designation and development of walking routes that link such places.  We have been asking members of the public to recommend romantic urban places and walking routes, and in doing so write a post card from that place enticing would-be lovers to visit.

The response has been tremendous, and we have had places recommended from all across the world.  The postcards reveal so much more as each is a romantic narrative, that gives us an insight into the both the place recommended and the person recommending that place.

The postcards have also featured in two art exhibitions in Canada in 2007, at the Toronto Design Exchange and the Banff Centre of Arts.

Check back here to find out more recommendations of romantic places,  spaces or walks, as we will publish them as we receive them, and take a look at our growing Google map of romantic places from around the World.

You can also download the paper that Andrew gave at the TRIP conference from here.

This article previously appeared on the Rethinking Cities website. The Romantic Ribbons initiative ran from 2006-2011.