Great North Run Cultural Programme

The Great North Run Cultural Programme, now known as Great North Run Culture, is an annual series of artistic commissions which celebrate and respond to the Great North Run - the world's largest half-marathon - its history and route, its spirit and recollection, the thousands of journeys and stories of those who take part.

Established in 2005 to celebrate the twenty fifth Great North Run, Great North Run Culture explores the partnership between art and sport. Commissions have included film, photography, music, dance, painting, drawing, writing and mass participation projects.

New work has been created by artists and creative practitioners including Jane and Louise Wilson, Michael Nyman, Fiona Banner, Bill Bryson, David Almond, Julian Germain, Graham Dolphin, Neville Campbell, Michael Baig-Clifford and Ravi Deepres, Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard, Suky Best, James Edwards, Stephen Gill and Beat Streuli.

To celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Great North Run and to create a legacy from the first Cultural Programme film by Jane and Louise Wilson, an annual Moving Image Commission was launched, awarding an artist of film-maker £30,000 to create a new piece of work based on the Great North Run.

The films are premiered in North East England in September as part of the Great North Run Cultural Programme, with an extract screened on the BBC as part of their live coverage of the Great North Run. There are plans to tour all of the works nationally and internationally from the end of 2008.

...
Wikipedia