The disabled Flâneur forcing us to rethink our cities

“The Flâneur is quite punk really, saying ​‘I’m going the other way, to explore myself and the inner life of the city,’” explains Phil Waterworth.

Phil is a PhD Researcher and artist based in Sheffield and the subject of The Flâneur, a thought-provoking short documentary from director Dorothy Allen-Pickard. Through Phil’s eyes, we see the joys of navigating the city and exploring its hidden or overlooked corners, but also the challenge of moving around as a disabled person in a country whose infrastructure increasingly fails to meet the needs of all its citizens. The film was made as part of Sheffield DocFest’s Filmmaker’s Challenge, which invited filmmakers to shoot a piece in just one day.

“I wanted to make something observational that followed Phil going about his day from morning to night, venturing into the city,” Dorothy explains. ​“I love films that are structured around a short contained period of time, like Ahmed Bouanani’s Six et Douze, Agnès Varda’s Cléo de 5 à 7, or the Dardenne brothers’ Two Days, One Night. Setting a story over a short period of time invites us into the more microscopic moments of someone’s life, rather than the dramatic ones, which I think has the potential to connect us more to a person, as it brings us into their everyday experience and shows us how they perceive and exist in the world.”

Phil moved to Sheffield from Wigan in 2000 and is studying for a PhD in Fine Art. In 2010, he was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis and the progression of the disease eventually led to him using a wheelchair.

“My work has always had a walking figure striding through it,” Phil explains. ​“Movement has been implicit in my art, perhaps from seeing Marcel Duchamp’s ​‘Nude Descending a Staircase’ and the symphonic structures of Wassily Kandinsky as a student. Movement binds the work of these artists together. Something happens when one becomes confined to a chair; distances shrink and the world becomes much smaller. The freedom to explore a point in the distance becomes impossible without help from others. This then becomes very tiring and almost Kafkaesque. Life loses its sensual quality. My explorations through the city are a way of engaging with the world, of capturing a sense of wanderlust that gives me space to think and play. So, for this overwhelming loss (I make no apology for this description, it is overwhelming) this is where the flâneur comes in. The freedom arises from walking or in my case, rolling.”

Dorothy was connected with Phil through an old family friend and his work on the idea of the disabled flâneur really spoke to her. “[Phil] has a brilliant, imaginative, original mind and it was really exciting to learn from him and get a sense of how his brain works,” Dorothy says. ​“He has such a curious, calm, generous perspective which anchors the documentary in something very special. Phil is not a didactic, preachy guy. He’s quietly curious, humble, patient and very open. We went on an open-ended journey together making this film, in the same way that going on a ​‘dérive’ is by nature open-ended. The whole point is you don’t know what’ll happen next or what conclusions you draw. So I suppose my only hope for this film is that it’s true to that openness, embodied by Phil and the figure of the flâneur.”

So, what exactly is a flâneur and what grabbed Phil about this idea? ​“The flâneur is a marginal figure,” he explains. ​“From Baudelaire to Walter Benjamin, he or she (Flâneuse) can be described as an idler, someone who makes their own paths through the city, not seduced by the market-place or the spectacle. There are perhaps apocryphal tales of flâneurs taking a turtle for a walk through Paris. The turtle is the perfect metaphor: it sets its own pace, carries its home on its back and is at home anywhere. Like the turtle, the flâneur makes their own time. Their movements are an act of curiosity and transgression. I first heard about the flâneur when I read about Walter Benjamin, exploring Paris and Berlin; how the streets could be a site for exploration, protest and activism.”

The flâneur celebrates their free-ranging exploration of the urban landscape, which becomes considerably more challenging when the flâneur is disabled – and accessibility infrastructure in our urban centres is often lacking. But Phil has leaned into the idea of a disabled flâneur and the new revelations on the city that come through experiencing the urban fabric from a wheelchair.

“Sheffield is very hilly but access is getting better,” Phil says. ​“I search for flat, smooth terrain, that I call, ​‘Islands of Solace’, or areas of smooth accessibility. I hope my research shows people how to slow down and look, and consider their environment with curiosity. I hope the sight of disabled citizens wandering the city streets becomes normalised and celebrated.”

The Flâneur is directed by Dorothy Allen-Pickard and was made through Sheffield DocFest’s Filmmaker’s Challenge.

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