Category Archives: Borders

Mihret Kebede, Slow Marathon (2012)

people walking


Mihret Kebede
Slow Marathon
2012

A 5,850 miles walk from Addis to Scotland and back > a 26 mile walk celebrating the human pace

Slow Marathon began in 2012 in collaboration with Ethiopian artist Mihret Kebede who attempted to walk from her home in Addis/Ethiopia to Huntly. The Addis to Huntly and back walk, was abandoned as visa restrictions, border controls and deserts got in the way. Instead, Mihret decided to walk the total 5,850 miles distance with many people to reach the distance metaphorically.

In order for her to accumulate the 5,850 miles from Addis to Huntly, Mihret calculated that she would need a total of 225 people to walk a marathon of 26 miles – each way. To achieve this goal she organized with us a Slow Marathon around Huntly, with a parallel walking event in Addis Ababa on the next day to bring her back home: 225 people x 26 miles = 5,850 miles distance

In the run up to this, and in collaboration with Norma D Hunter, she organized training sessions and other walking actions that brought people locally and from all over the world together to contribute to the total distance target. A shoelace exchange between Huntly and Ethiopian walkers was part of the process: Multiple world record holder and patron for the event, Haile Gebrselassie’s shoelaces traveled to Huntly for an exchange with one of the participants.

The event was complemented by a discussion entitled Walk sans Frontières, chaired by Deirdre Heddon.

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Since the first event, Slow Marathon became an annual weekend event composed of a conceptually led, 26 mile walk, expanding upon a theme or an idea related to our curated programme, concluding in 2020. It was followed by a day of talks, films, food and discussion, in relation to the chosen project. Celebrating the human pace, Slow Marathon was both an endurance event as well as a poetic act that brought together friendship, physical activity and the appreciation of our landscapes in their geo-political settings.

You can see all Slow Marathon routes below:

Under One Sky: 2020
Dufftown to Huntly: 2018
Tillathrowie to Huntly: 2017
Along the Deveron – with and against the flow: 2016
Portsoy to Huntly: 2015
Glenkindie to Huntly: 2014
Cabrach to Huntly: 2013
Around Huntly: 2012 I 2019

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Iman Tajik, Under One Sky (2020)

composite image of sky

Iman Tajik, Under One Sky (2020)

“Wherever you are in the world, we are all under one sky

Iman Tajik is a Glasgow based artist and photographer originally from Iran. Borders and the movement of freedom are his key subject matters – influenced by his personal experience of crossing borders. He was working with us over the summer on a mass worldwide border-free walking project.

The Coronavirus pandemic has adopted an increasing fear of the outsider into our lives and homes. Some of our politicians’ rhetoric about Covid-19 being a ‘foreign virus’; subsequent border closures – they all play into existing xenophobia. The virus however, doesn’t acknowledge borders. A pandemic affected us all. So, what can we do to show that we all live under one sky?

Iman Tajik explored global solidarity through the reimagining of our annual Slow Marathon walking event. Instead of our annual place-based mass walk, this year’s Slow Marathon: Under One Sky took place collaboratively – by myriad participants around the globe. Cumulatively, mile by mile, we wended our human trail across the surface of our planet and through as many borders as we could. To do this, Iman forged a digitally collaborative relationship with many walkers, exploring the ideological interplay/conflict of borders and the virus; the lines we humans create traversing the landscape when free to do so; and the plight of those being denied that freedom – by the virus or by socio-political means. For this he collected images from walkers of the sky they saw while walking, to be brought together in a massive artwork of all of us Under One Sky.

The Under One Sky project and its event, Slow Marathon 2020 supported Scottish Detainee Visitors, who provide friendship and advocacy for residents of Dungavel House, Scotland’s only immigration detention centre.

In total, the Under One Sky project included 320 global walkers, who walked 41,725.46km – that’s 104.12% of the way around the Earth!” [credit]

Inua Ellams, The Midnight Run (2005-)

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The Midnight Run is a registered social enterprise. Like traditional businesses we aim to make a profit but what sets us apart is that we aim to – reinvest or donate those profits towards creating positive social change.

Inspiration.

The Midnight Run is a walking, night-time, arts-filled, cultural journey through a city and a typical Midnight ‘Runner’ has a healthy sense of adventure and seeks experiences beyond the mainstream. It is partially influenced by The Situationists – a political and artistic movement between 1957 & 1972 – started in France. Founders of the movement were tired of the commercialism of art and consumerism and wandered city streets in typical post-war bohemian fashion seeking REAL experiences.

Accordingly, The Midnight Run seeks to negate the frenzy and hysteria of mass media, pop culture, hype and reality T.V. for actual reality, for the simplicity and intimacy of walking and talking. Our idea is to reclaim the streets of a city, to dispel the idea of ‘danger after dark’ instead to ‘discover after dark’. It is to grow urban communities, situate meetings of strangers, for relationships to blossom, to inhabit the confines of glass, concrete, steel and structure as a child does a maze: with natural play and wonderment.

Why artists? 

“During those early Midnight Runs, I’d run writing workshops and poetry exercise specific to locations we visited. After, I’d ask participants to share their writing and I noticed how it created new spaces for communication and conversation. Essentially, I stumbled across a simple way to deepen group dynamics and our appreciation and understanding of each other.”

“Over time I invited artists/activists of various disciplines to run workshops thereby widening the scope of this interaction. Artists/activists are often plugged into fascinating networks and know great spaces worth visiting for playful or aesthetic reasons. Searching for outdoors spaces to compliment their art forms made planning Midnight Run routes vastly more interesting… the artists work on several levels.” — Inua Ellams, Founder

But WHY JOIN A MIDNIGHT RUN?

50% of the world’s population live in urban environments. Despite growing population density we face issues of loneliness, depression and economic polarisation… because of global immigration and gentrification, many cities are rapidly losing their local, historical and communal identities in a land-grab for commercial space. These new paradigms favour younger, faster, richer members of societies, paradigms that are increasingly hostile to the youth and older members of societies.

The Midnight Run experience counters these issues by slowing urban life to talking, playing and creating within various urban spaces. Because the event is for one night only with strangers, participants are afforded anonymity and can attend without any danger of judgement or consequence. By inviting artists of diverse practices, we encourage participants to step out of comfort zones and exercise their creative muscle. By inviting local artists who inform the route, we ensure what is experienced on the night is specific and true to the locality, the inhabitants and their environment.

The ground-breaking idea behind the Midnight Run is a return to simplicity, to entertain without entertainment, to trust in community and conversation, to rediscover our essential creative selves.

INUA ELLAMS.

Born in Nigeria in 1984, Inua Ellams is an internationally touring poet, playwright, performer, graphic artist & designer. He has published three pamphlets of poetry including ‘Candy Coated Unicorns and Converse All Stars’ and ‘The Wire Headed-Heathen’. His first play ‘The 14th Tale’ was awarded a Fringe First at the Edinburgh International Theatre Festival and his third, ‘Black T-Shirt Collection’ ran at England’s National Theatre. In graphic art & design (online and in print) he tries to mix the old with the new, juxtaposing texture and pigment with flat shades of colour and vector images. He lives and works from London, where he founded The Midnight Run.

Inua hails from the Hausa tribe in Northern Nigeria, a people synonymous with a nomadic tradition. The Midnight Run came from this tradition, his search for a community to belong to, the transience and transformation of travel, and a belief in the bridge-building ability of arts and artistic interaction.

OUR BEGINNINGS.

The Midnight Run was found in 2005 by award winning poet and playwright Inua Ellams. In 2011 The Midnight Run embarked on a collaborative partnership with CCT-SeeCity, founded by Elena Mazzoni Wagner in Prato, Italy. This marked the beginning an expansion across Europe. To date Midnight Run events have commissioned in Manchester, London, Leeds, Milan, Firenze, Barcelona, Madrid & Auckland.

WHO WE WORK WITH.

Midnight Run events speak to themes of enhancing group communication, making different art forms accessible, supporting local artists and exploring cultural dynamics within urban environments. Events are typically commissioned by arts organisations, cultural festivals, community groups and corporate organisations. Organisations worked with include Southbank Centre, Contact Theatre, PUMA, Tate Modern, The Royal Society of Arts, Bush Theatre, Lomography, Create Festival + many more.

Francis Alys, When Faith Moves Mountains (2002)

“Five hundred volunteers with shovels gathered at a huge sand dune on the outskirts of Lima, Peru, and over the course of a day moved it by several inches. Alÿs developed the idea after first visiting Lima in October 2000. The political context was inescapable: “This was during the last months of the Fujimori dictatorship. Lima was in turmoil with clashes on the streets, obvious social tension and an emerging movement of resistance. This was a desperate situation calling for an epic response: staging a social allegory to fit the circumstances seemed more appropriate than engaging in a sculptural exercise.” The principle that drove When Faith Moves Mountains was “maximum effort, minimal result.” The most apparently minimal change was effected, and only by means of the most massive of collective efforts.

The action itself, as documented in photographs and video, is extraordinarily impressive, but in the end the “social allegory” takes over from the work’s undeniable formal presence. The action was completely transitory. The next day, no one could recognize that the huge sand dune had been moved. The true aftermath of the work lies in the ripples of anecdote and image that radiate out from it.” [credit]

Nevin Aladag, Session (2013)

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“Session is a video triptych shot in Sharjah’s urban areas and desert. In this musical composition, different kinds of Arabic, African and Indian percussion instruments, all found in the United Arab Emirates, are played by the elements – the sand, the sea and the wind.”

From Wanderlust catalog: “Aladag’s work explores the textures of socio-spatial environments and global cultural identity. In Sessions we are thus invited to become not only viewers and listeners, but also voyagers and cartographers, navigating the enigmatic edges of our surrounding environments through surfaces and socially activated gestures.”