Looking back on: At a Crossroads by Mark Farid
Image credit: Jamie Bubb
On Thursday 3rd September 2026, 20 people - a mix of ArtBombers and Doncaster Ramblers - headed out on a circular walk led by David Gadd and created by guest artist Mark Farid (Instagram @morkforid). We finished our walk in the sun-drenched ArtBomb courtyard, for a shared meal by Paula Lockey and a debrief hosted by Mark's collaborator and urban sociologist, Louise Rondel.
The walk was part of an ongoing Arts Council-supported research project called At a Crossroads by Mark Farid. Mark is collaborating with local Rambler leaders in cities across the UK to explore how forms of governance and control are built into the urban landscape, and perhaps to see how this varies depending on which part of the country you live in.
Image credit: Jamie Bubb
Since his trip to Doncaster, Mark has taken At a Crossroads down to East London (3 October 2026), where he collaborated with Live Art Development Agency (LADA) to explore ownership and access, signage, road design and the pedestrian crossing as a site where the state, governance and the body collide.
Mark gave an insight into the history of jaywalking in California and the disparities in the pedestrian's relationship to roads globally- From Berlin to Warsaw, Chengdu and Doncaster - during his artist talk presented at ArtBomb's Stories Grow Here forum event on Friday 4 September.
The walk was documented by Doncaster-based photographer, Jamie Bubb. A selection of his brilliant photos are presented here, as a visual insight into what we got up to on the day.
Image credit: Jamie Bubb
"At a Crossroads is about how control is built into the ground we move through, and how obedience becomes so habitual it no longer looks like obedience at all.
In Doncaster, with the Ramblers and the ArtBomb community, we went looking for it on foot, six miles out of Hexthorpe, over the Don and through Sprotbrough, past the prison and back into town, three hours of deliberate attention with a camera on us the whole way. And somewhere near the end the group came off a single-file path, bunched together, and crossed the road without anyone looking.
We only found it afterwards, at ArtBomb, when the photographer said it aloud. That is the thing itself: you can walk out specifically to catch it, and it will still happen behind your back. The system does not need to determine every footstep, because it has already taken the ground the footstep moves across.
Thank you to ArtBomb and the Doncaster Ramblers, who gave us the walk, the room, and the conversation that made it visible."
Mark Farid
