An exploration of running as metaphor, methodology, material through the RUN! RUN! RUN! Biennale #r3fest 2016

Abstract

is an artist and curator. Through installation, performance, film and text, she explores the body and mind in (com)motion. Since 2009, the focus has been on running as an arts and humanities discourse, and her role has been described by artist Professor Gregg Whelan as 'instrumental in the UK and lots of other contexts in pulling together all sorts of writers, artists, academics and performance-makers to come together and to start to form what might become to be called "Running Studies"'. The first run of her curated RUN! RUN! RUN! Biennale was praised by the Guardian for its 'positive atmosphere' (2014). Before she ran, she swam, hopped, skipped and drowned. The results have been shared at Documenta, Royal Geographical Society, Biennale of Sydney, MOMA, BBC Radio 3 Free Thinking, and a few are collected by the Museum of London and Fukuoka Art Museum. Currently an artist-inresidence at King'

Running as a catalyst for environmental data inquiry: closing the distance between ‘everyday’ and ‘expert’ knowledges

“…19 There is a rich literature on performative walking and its capacity to foster deeper engagement with space 20 and an emerging body of scholarship is exploring the intersections between running and different artistic and academic disciplines. 21 This article contributes to this discourse by exploring how running can act as an embodied methodology for thinking about place-based environmental concerns. Running, and other locative practices like walking and cycling, might act as a bridge between 'everyday' and 'expert' environmental knowledge, sparking new engagements with environmental maps and data.…”

Art and psychiatry in the 21st century: here's to more messy – and magical – entanglements

“…Works of art that have continued to intrigue are not those that provide or claim to provide answers, but those that problematise, interrogate and provoke. 38 Submissions like Aston's can thus open up spaces for reflection, connection and constructive collision to challenge and extend the state of psychiatry, management of psychiatric services, and education and training in mental healthcare. This can advance how we think about and relate to other bodies and minds around us, as well as advance how we understand how knowledge can be created.…”

Untitled

“…"…while ethnographic research has generated important insights about embodiment, sport and movement cultures, there is a danger that the underlying message is that one needs to do the activity to fully understand it." (Sparkes 2017) The RUN RUN RUN Biennale was an interdisciplinary programme initiated by Kai Syng Tan (2019), exploring the ways in which running could be activated as a creative material, metaphor and methodology to think through critical issues related to the body, gender, space and community. With versions of the festival from 2014 -2018 the biennale has focussed on running as a "tool" (an artistic one) in which considerations surrounding the body and human movement can be analysed through a lens of running activity.…”