DataWalks
Have you ever walked a dataset?
What datawalks are
Have you ever explored a dataset while walking through the ecosystem it describes?
DataWalks bring data out of the screen and back into the world it comes from. Instead of reading ecosystem data as numbers, charts, or maps from a distance, participants encounter it while walking through the places, landscapes, and living communities it abstracts.
In a DataWalk, a dataset becomes a new way of sensing and knowing the world, revealing patterns, relationships, and changes that might otherwise remain invisible.
By bringing data, people, and ecosystems into direct contact, DataWalks invite us to experience data differently.
At the DRS 2026 conference we ran the format for the first time, engaging over 50 participants in:
- Looking at the sky beyond what is visible, knowing far and ancient galaxies.
- Wandering in a meadow while listening to the ecological network of species and their entanglements.
- Being with a tree while discovering that microscopic details on the bark uncover its untold stories.