Communication Guild

Running x running

Sweat, look at the people, look at the screen, keep up the pace, go to the shower, turn on the machine, look at yourself in the mirror, improve yourself, listen to the playlist, open the locker, remember your goal, run.

The desires that motivate our research in mediation are to work in relation to the exhibition CITISSIMUM ALTISSIMUM FORTISSIMUM  at Santa Mònica, and in the Raval neighbourhood, where we are located as part of the art centre.

Questioning the parametrisation, competitiveness, and self-demand inherent in elite sport, in a large part of artistic practice and in other areas of contemporary life, is part of the open debate proposed by the exhibition Citissium, Altissimum, Fortissimum. In relation to the Raval, we are interested in exploring other ways of practising sport and physical activity, the relational spaces that exist in gyms, the training machinery and the dissemination of messages of self-improvement.

We began our research by approaching the gyms in the neighbourhood. After all, from the Mòniques space we see a gym. And while we visited it for the first time, we thought that we felt as strange in a gym as other people might feel in an art centre. With this feeling of strangeness and curiosity we started a collaboration with gyms in the Raval.

During this process we picked up an idea that we had already put forward at the Sant Pau’s Gym and the CEMs Can Ricart and Colom: to hold a race in the Raval during the neighbourhood's main festival. From this shared desire, we began a process of research into the popular race and the imaginary of running in the public space: can a popular race function as a space for relations between the art centre, the gyms and the neighbourhood residents? And to problematise, what is running in the Raval and why do we run in the Raval? Do we run for health? To run away? To send a message as in the old days? To occupy public space? To cross places and architectures? To avoid obstacles of the urban design in continuous ‘under construction’? To open new routes in the neighbourhood? Is it only the ex-pats who run? Is it to demonstrate? Is it to celebrate? Can we have a race without running? Without anyone winning or losing?