RUNDOWN: What are the ways to (re-)imagine running beyond a sport or fitness activity? How can these new ways of thinking about running be enacted in how we write or talk about running? This is an outline of my investigation RUN! RUN! RUN!. This explores running as an arts and humanities discourse and artistic research paradigm since 2009. I work solo or collaboratively, and have introduced 30 creative, curatorial, research and teaching methods or frameworks that activate running as metaphor, method and/or material, across 300 performances, exhibitions, seminars and articles.
IMPACT: I have been described as being ‘absolutely central’ and ‘instrumental’ (artist Gregg Whelan/Lone Twin 2015) in leading and broadening ‘Running Studies’. My investigation displays ‘radical interdisciplinarity’ (Dr Alan Latham, 2016). Theatre researcher Dr Andrew Filmer states that ‘it is the artist, curator, and researcher Kai Syng Tan who has done the most in seeking to develop an interdisciplinary discourse around running art and performance (Filmer 2020). This work continues. I lead the Running Cultures Research Group (77 members, since 2014) and the new Running Artfully Network (RAN, 2020). My solo work counters Cartesian models of body-mind, and challenge the cultural canon of walking which has historically been white, ableist and male. Platforms include dOCUMENTA (Germany)(above) and Warsaw Centre for Contemporary Arts (2015). Projects were shortlisted for AHRC New Generation Thinking 2016, Artangel Open 100, Yinka Shonibare’s Guest Projects (final 4), Great North Run Moving Images Commission (final 3).
RUNNING IN ART, ART IN RUNNING: Drawing on my practice-led PhD (2009-2014) conducted at the UCL Slade School of Fine Art, RUN! RUN! RUN! is an extensive body of practice-led research. I work solo or collaboratively, and have introduced 30 creative, curatorial, research and teaching methods or frameworks that activate running as metaphor, method and/or material (Tan 2018), and how that relates to place, other bodies and minds, and the world around us. RUNN! RUN! RUN! stands out not just for its reframing of running as a cultural discourse and introducing running to artistic research, but the foregrounding of non-Western and non-neurotypical perspectives into these discourses. Key has also been the introduction of new methods in research and the communication (writing, presentation) of this research which drew on the playfulness and agility of running. I did this through: solo and collaborative practice through RUN! RUN! RUN! International Body for Research and curatorial process with RUN! RUN! RUN! Biennale #r3fest
RUN! RUN! RUN! International Body for Research: I worked through ideas by ‘running back-and-forth’ a wide range of thoughts including live art, social practice, the neuroscience, cultural and evolutionary histories, biomechanics, mythologies of running, Situationism and auto-ethnography. I drew on my experience as a non-athletic woman who picked up endurance running, and reflected on the physical, biological, affective and creative impact of running, and how my body in motion interacted with the streets and people that I ran in and into. I created a range of methods activating running as a playful toolkit to re-orientate the way we experience, think about and impact the city, agency, technology and divergent thinking. Key was the ‘running messenger’, which draws on the historical foot messenger, and who is an agitator of new discourses and new knowledge in their intellectual agility and crossing of disciplinary and cultural borders.
RUN! RUN! RUN! Biennale #r3fest: I approached geographer Dr Alan Latham (UCL) and initiated a new interdisciplinary festival, the RUN! RUN! RUN! International Festival of Running in 2014. This was not just a dissemination platform, but a collaborative laboratory gathering people from paleoanthropology, theatre, philosophy and more. We programmed group runs, and structured the activities and participants using elements of running, including ‘sprint-presentations’ (8 minute-papers). We named this running-inspired curatorial approach ‘productive antagonisms’ (Latham & Tan 2016), which also described our own creative collision as people from distinct fields. #r3fest has since evolved into the RUN! RUN! RUN! Biennale. I work with different co-curators each time. #r3fest has since presented the work of 65 researchers, artists, and public across 5 venues, including Cardiff National Indoor Stadium and Paris School of Culture and Art. Participants came from 40 institutions (eg universities of Oxford & Harvard, and cultural and third sectors like Leeds Art Gallery and FreeToRun/Afghanistan). The Guardian praised #r3fest for its ‘positive atmosphere’, and urged other conferences to ‘take a leaf from its book’ (2014). I was a key speaker on a BBC Radio 3 programme (2017, 300,000 listeners). #r3fest ‘alumni’ has curated events embedding productive antagonisms, like the ESRC-funded Running Dialogues (2015).
IMPACT: My solo work counters Cartesian models of body-mind, and challenge the cultural canon of walking which has historically been white, ableist and male. Platforms include dOCUMENTA (Germany)(above) and Warsaw Centre for Contemporary Arts (2015). Projects were shortlisted for AHRC New Generation Thinking 2016, Artangel Open 100, Yinka Shonibare’s Guest Projects (final 4), Great North Run Moving Images Commission (final 3). The curatorial work has led to the description of being ‘absolutely central’ and ‘instrumental’ (Whelan 2015) in leading and broadening ‘Running Studies’. My work displays ‘radical interdisciplinarity’ (Dr Alan Latham, 2016). A theatre researcher states that ‘it is the artist, curator, and researcher Kai Syng Tan who has done the most in seeking to develop an interdisciplinary discourse around running art and performance (Filmer 2020). This work continues. I lead the Running Cultures Research Group (77 members, since 2014) and the new Running Artfully Network (RAN, 2020).
Captions: Top: Caption: Hand-in-Hand, 2018 version. The image shows 2 participants, who are General Practitioners, and who are also lecturers at King’s Undergraduate Medical Education in the Community, Faculty of Life Sciences & Medicine King’s College London. Above: ‘Running Discourse‘. Participatory art, Documenta 2012 (European Artistic Research Network conference). Kassel, Germany. Photograph by Dr Hayley Newman.