Layla Curtis is the artist commissioned by Great North Run Culture to create a moving image commission that is informed and inspired by the Great North Run.

Travel and movement is at the heart of Layla’s work, which often investigates how architecture, space and the city can be subverted, re-claimed and re-imagined. Her work explores how contemporary navigational, tracking or surveillance technologies such as GPS, drones, geo-location, webcams, and infra-red might be appropriated to unveil our environment, reflect our journeys through it and encourage new interactions with it. She pushes the limitations of these technologies, exploring how they might be hijacked and used as tools for drawing whilst challenging us to reflect on our own role in defining the spaces we occupy.

A well-established artist in her own right, Layla’s practice has taken her across the globe. She has undertaken residencies in Antarctica and Japan and travelled to the Borneo rainforest to make her film Tong Tana, while living with nomadic hunter-gatherers. Her work is exhibitied internationally to great acclaim, including exhibitions at Pavilhão Lucas Nogueira Garcez-Oca, São Paulo, Brazil and Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal, Canada. It features in prestigious collections from the Tate Collection (UK) to the World Bank Collection (USA).

She has undertaken a number of commissions over the years, working with Film and Video Umbrella, Art on the Underground, Westminster City Council, and Turner Contemporary. We’re delighted to add Great North Run Culture to this list.

See a sneak preview of Layla's early development work for 2015 moving image commission.

Great North Run Culture: Moving Image Commission 

Our Moving Image Commission is now in its 11th year, awards an experienced artist or filmmaker £30,000 to create a new work which responds to and captures the spirit of one of the world’s top sporting events: The Great North Run.

The selection process takes place each summer, with the chosen artist creating a piece to be premiered in September of the following year as part of the Great North Run Culture programme celebrations and The Great North Run itself.

The commissioned work itself will be installed and screened in a venue in the North East during the autumn and an extract will also feature on the BBC during their live coverage of the Run. The Moving Image Commission explores and highlights the relationship between sport and art and is a unique opportunity for moving image artists and filmmakers alike.

The search for an artist to fulfil our 2016 Moving Image Commission begins in June 2015.