ANTI Adult RUN! RUN! RUN!

GALLERY: http://kaisyngtan.com/portfolio/antiadultrun/ VIDEO CLIPS: https://vimeo.com/144658511 https://vimeo.com/138449874 MEDIA ENGAGEMENT: Newspaper and radio (in Finnish) Yle Uutiset http://bit.ly/2dwnNqT Real Time Arts (Australia) review: goo.gl/LTLYD0 CONFERENCE PRESENTATION ABOUT THIS WORK: Royal Geographical Society RGS-IBG Conference 2016 goo.gl/GLq45p QUESTIONS: With a logocentric, technology-saturated world, and divisive silos of the elite art world and the academy, could individuals – as adults, academics and artists – be taught the gift (‘anti’ in the Finnish language) of having unadulterated fun, and question existing orthodoxies? Through artist-led creative interfaces and initiatives, what new insights arise, regarding participation, audience and place to promote public health and enrich existing understanding of wellbeing? RIGOUR, ORIGINALITY: Also known as the #antiadultrun, this was a series of masterclasses run by experts aged 7-14 to teach adults (top age 82) how to re-claim fun and be ‘old children’, like the Chinese Daoist philosopher Lao Zi (literally ‘old child’, 500BCE). The workshops draw on my research since 2009 on the ‘gentle anarchism’ of Lao Zi, and the Situationists’ notion of the revolution of everyday life, and the childlike and subversive qualities of running. Commissioned by the annual ANTI Festival of Contemporary Arts, this was held in Kuopio Finland, September 2015, which also featured at the festival was acclaimed live artist Heather Cassils. Around 40 participants enjoyed the 5 masterclasses that took place at a local stadium (before the Kuopio Annual Marathon kicked off), and the Kuopio Market Square in Finland. The ‘Masters’ were recruited from a local school, and the artwork was co-developed from 2-days/4 hours of workshops. I invited geographer Dr Alan Latham (UCL Senior Lecturer) to work on this with me. SIGNIFICANCE: Feedback from participants and the masters were 100% positive. We successfully demonstrated that running