Artist and Athlete

Abstract

This diploma thesis is derived from the question: “How to successfully deliver a message of long-distance running being useful for personal growth?“ It is exploring long-distance running through the creative practice to widen the audiences for running by communicating alternative messages about what running is. In the western world, it is culturally constituted that running is something done with the purpose of either winning or fitness and this stereotype is the main antagonist in my quest which the current thesis is looking emancipation for. In the first part of the thesis, I conduct practice-based research through long-distance running and by analysis present the outcomes in the context of personal growth. The ideas include seeing long-distance running as a rite of passage, the possibility of „everything containing everything,“ the idea of „God“ as a representation of the unknown territory, and the development of „drunce,“ a practice that merges running and dancing. In the second part of the thesis, I analyze the art/long-distance running synthesis in practical works of other artists to see how works that carry messages linked to personal growth are communicated. The conclusion suggests the re-enchantment of long-distance running as the key idea which can be accomplished through creating „gaps“ in the familiar so that the viewer can insert their fantasies in it; exhaustion as the way of communicating an authentic message; and tweaking/distorting the concept of running through a different practice as possible solutions.