ANTI Contemporary Art Festival 2015: Running Programme

This curatorial practice research asks how performance makers and academics are exploring running as a site of creative enquiry and public engagement. Produced in collaboration with ANTI Contemporary Art Festival (Kuopio, Finland) and Kuopio Marathon and supported by Whelan’s AHRC Fellowship in the Creative and Performing Arts (The Long Run; Contemporary Performance and Endurance Running) the research presented a programme of four publicly sited artworks, one international seminar and two informal panel/presentation events. In identifying related running-focused enquiries by international performance makers and aligning that with recent academic readings of sport’s socio-cultural agency, the research introduced an emergent creative/discursive framing of running to ANTI Festival and Kuopio Marathon’s shared 16,000-plus public audience. Events occurred during the running of the Kuopio Marathon, with the marathon itself listed as content within the arts festival’s offer. By engendering a participatory relationship between the arts and sports communities the research sought to place audiences in the space of commonality between the two in order to explore the performic, cultural and creative potential of running. The programme presented: Sandra Hall and Kim Saarinen (UK/FI), Coming Back; Vicki Weitz (UK), Running Beyond Language; Kai Syng Tan and Alan Latham (UK), ANTI-ADULT RUN! RUN! RUN!; All The Queens Men (AU), Fun Run. Discursive events introduced the concerns of these works: an international seminar (Art of Endurance) featured academics and artists including Matti Tainio (FI, key-note, author of Parallel Worlds, Art and Sport in Contemporary Culture) and Penny Andrews (UK, artist, academic and para-athlete), Dr Kai Syng Tan and Dr Alan Latham (UCL), Vicki Weitz, Pia Houni (FI, Chair) and Cassils (CA, Artist); Whelan and Andrews contributed to a panel discussion at Kuopio Marathon’s Expo on Andrew’s art/running practice and a ‘Pechakucha’ evening featured presentations from artist Tristan Meecham (AU) and artist/marathon runner Markku Ruotsalainen (FI).

• https://antifestival.com/en/