Walking with a 6-year-old and a smartphone: locative AR, counter-mapping and the productive disruptions of intergenerational collaboration in Placing Spaces.

Placing Spaces is an ongoing practice-research project I have been developing with my daughter Poppy since June 2023. Together, we have been testing a process of intergenerational collaboration and attempting to use walking methods and creative technologies to explore place from a child’s perspective. This article outlines the process we have been on thus far and critically reflects on a geo-located AR walk I shared in Leeds in August 2023. Bringing together a series of key critical lenses – walking scholarship, intergenerational performance, theories of spatial images, locative media, posthumanism and childism – I argue that walking-with a 6-year-old and a smartphone enabled us to embrace a series of entanglements between adult, child, technology and place, which aimed to decentre my role as father/parent/artist/researcher.