Running: metaphor, methodology, material

More than two million people run weekly in England, but many of us may not know that two million years ago, running was a tool for survival. Our ancestors, the Homo erectus, ran after antelopes, in order to hunt for them as food. And for writer Joyce Carol Oates, running is a metaphor for transgression. What are the ways in which running could be considered beyond a sport or exercise, and instead be activated as a methodology and metaphor to think about the world around us? \ud \ud In this presentation, I will run through a handful of examples of new or recent works by artists and writers who took part in a programme I curated with two other female researcher-artist-runners in November 2016. The interdisciplinary RUN! RUN! RUN! Biennale 2016: Running as Metaphor and Methodology took place in Leeds, London and Cardiff and featured 27 artists, academics and charitable organisations. Over films, live art and readings, we asked: How does running (dis)connect people across borders? How does running (dis)connect people with the city? How does running people (dis)connect with their bodies? The series ended on a high, at the stunning National Indoors Athletics Centre in Cardiff with an evening of new, live art (including by international performance maker Eddie Ladd) and readings (such as by BBC writer Catrin Kean). \ud \ud With a special focus on works by female artists, an aim of the Biennale and my presentation is to provide an update to the well-trodden paths created by the canon of walking which has often focused on the very white, very male and sometimes drugged-out (see Baudelaire, Benjamin, Richard Long and Will Self). Just as women have always walked, they have always run, and run\ud well. The Biennale’s line-up of females and males activate running as creative and critical toolkits to engage with the body, and to engage with other bodies in the city and across borders. This speaks loudly of the richness of research, practice, action and activity out there that are not just heroic, territorial, logocentric, neurotypical, or white(-washed). In addition, it presents an antidote to the growing cottage-industry of work that feature the leitmotif of a solitary, self-serious and sensitive new male battling nature/the universe (think Caspar David Friedrich’s protagonist in Wanderer above the Sea of Fog, add running shorts and Garmin and, voila, voila, you have a MAMIL or middle-aged man in lycra, who runs, and writes/talks)