Creative practices have made a standing contribution to mobilities research. We write this article as a collective of 25 scholars and practitioners to make a provocation: to further position creative mobilities research as a fundamental contribution and component in this field. The article explores how creative forms of research-whether in the form of artworks, exhibitions, performances, collaborations, and morehas been a foundational part of shaping the new mobilities paradigm, and continues to influence its methodological, epistemological, and ontological concerns. We tour through the interwoven history of art and mobilities research, outlining five central contributions that creativity brings. Through short vignettes of each author's creative practice, we discuss how creativity has been key to the evolution and emergence of how mobilities research has expanded to global audiences of scholars, practitioners, and communities. The article concludes by highlighting the potency of the arts for lively and transdisciplinary pathways for future mobilities research in the uncertainties that lay ahead.

Our public survey showed that more people walked during COVID-19, and walked more frequently. However, some people walked less, or their walking reduced over the various lockdowns. Many barriers or challenges to walking were identified by respondents. We have commissioned 30 artists from across the UK to contribute recipes to The Walkbook which address one or more of these research challenges including: bad weather, bored of walking, shielding, anxious, lack confidence, excluded, in pain, nowhere to walk, bored of walking the same route, cannot walk very far, frightened, lack time, can’t be bothered, isolated. We hope that The Walkbook provides people – individuals and groups – with inspiration to walk, and to keep on walking.

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This article has been peer reviewed through the double-blind process of Studies in the Maternal, which is a journal published by the Open Library of Humanities.

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