City Running

How do we experience our city?

“Only risk brings reward.” Ros Barber, poet and novelist.

On the night of Friday 30 November 2012, 30 artists from all disciplines set out to rediscover a neglected part of the city they call home. Taking in shiny new office blocks, Victorian industrial heritage, nightclubs, waterways, hidden alleyways and a major train station, City Running asks artists and audiences the question: how do we experience our city?

At 9pm artists set off from The Invisible Circus’ Jackdaw Hall at Paintworks into the Enterprise Zone armed with pens, paper, cameras and other materials to collect, document and record. From 10pm, they returned to base camp and have just two hours to make an entirely new artwork. From midnight, audiences experienced these rapidly produced, brand new artworks.

Led by Artistic Director Rowena Easton and produced by MAYK in collaboration with ArtsAgenda, City Running is a live public arts intervention that opens dialogue about the public environment.

Participating artists: Amy Mason, Anna Searle Jones, Carol Peace, Chelsey Flood, CLUSTER BOMB [collective], Constance Fleuriot, Daniel Hayman, Emma Kilbey, Gina Lundy, Holly Corfield Carr, Itta Howie, Imogen Pettitt, James Beckett, Jamie Dunn, Jess Rotas, Jo Hellier, Laura Kriefman, Lee Nutbean, Lisa May Thomas, Makala Cheung, Mark Hewitt, Megan Clark-Bagnall, Michelle Henning, Nathan Hughes, Paul Blakemore, Rachel Blackman, Ros Ford, Tanya Josham, Timothy Hill.

City Running was part of a series of commissions exploring Bristol Temple Quarter designed to surprise, question and delight. They will pop up, excite and re-invent perceptions and potentials. A new collaborative initiative co-ordinated by Watershed with funding from Arts Council England. The lead producing partners are Watershed, Knowle West Media Centre and MAYK.

Photos: © Farrows Creative and Alejendro Acin (IC Visual Lab).

Artists who participated in City Running Bristol

Amy Mason
Constance Fleuriot
CLUSTER BOMB [collective]
Gina Lundy and this photo
Jamie Dunn
Jo Hellier
Mark Hewitt
Megan Clark-Bagnall
Michelle Henning
Tanya Josham