Please help us out by filling in our short online survey before Friday 26 October and in return we’ll enter you into our draw to win signed Mark Wallinger: Camera Running posters. We’ll publish the results and announce the winners next month. In the mean time you can share your photos on our Facebook page, tweet us at @GNRCulture / #GNRC12 or contact us via our website.

A big thanks also to our funders Arts Council England and Bupa Great North Run, and to our new partners at Northumbria Water for supporting our free education programme In Motion.

We’re already busy working on next year’s programme and we’ll use the findings of our survey to help shape our plans for #GNRC13 – we hope to see you there!   

It’s only been two weeks since #GNRC12 finished but we just couldn’t wait to get started on #GNRC13.

Winner of our 2013 Great North Run Moving Image Commission, Melanie Manchot was in the North East at the weekend to film parkour runners on the iconic Newcastle Swing Bridge. 

With a little help from our friends (huge thanks to the Port of Tyne, and to Newcastle Council) and A LOT of risk assessment we were able to get access to the bridge as it was actually swinging. With cameras positioned on top of the Tyne Bridge Tower and the Quayside, Mel's crew had a great view of the parkour runner as he made his way along the top of the moving Swing Bridge. It goes without saying that the camera crew and parkour runners Mel is working with are all highly skilled and this is not something you should try at home...!

We’ll keep you posted throughout the year as the film starts to take shape – don't forget you can sign up for email updates, find us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter for the latest news.

2012 was a big year for us here at Great North Run Culture. We’re incredibly proud of our programme which included new commissions from Mark Wallinger, Douglas Gordon, Dan Holdsworth, Kate Fox and Reuben Henry & Karin Kihlberg.

We want to say a huge thanks to the 663,000 of you who saw our exhibitions and came to our programme of events, workshops, family activities and artist talks. 

90% of visitors rated their experience as positive, and around three quarters said they would recommend our programme to a friend.

One audience member who saw Douglas Gordon’s The End of Civilisation at the Tyne Theatre in Newcastle said, “The sign of a good artwork in my book is one that stays in my mind after viewing, affects the way I see the world around me, and makes me ask lots of questions, and this one certainly did.” In fact, lots of you said the work was thought-provoking and original, and many of you told us you felt inspired and uplifted. 

Through TV, radio and the press we reached an audience of over three million people, including people who saw highlights from our programme on BBC ONE as part of the Great North Run coverage, broadcast in glorious high definition for the first time.

A special thanks goes out to everyone who took the time to give us feedback – either in person at an event, using the Twitter hashtag #GNRC12 or by filling in our survey. We picked names at random and sent four lucky winners a signed Mark Wallinger Camera Running poster last week. But more importantly, we’re using what you told us to shape our plans for next year – watch this space as they say. Or better still, sign up for our e-newsletter, follow us on Twitter or find us on Facebook to be the first to get the latest updates and news on next year’s programme.

We’re also very grateful to our funders Arts Council England and the Bupa Great North Run, and to our new partners at Northumbrian Water for supporting our free education programme In Motion. And last but certainly not least, a big thanks to all the partners, volunteers and venues we work with every year that make Great North Run Culture possible.

Have a wonderful Christmas and see you all next year!

We thought we’d kick off 2013 with some good news – we’re delighted to say that our Douglas Gordon commission for #GNRC12 opens in Tel Aviv on 24 January. 

Co-commissioned by Great North Run Culture and Locus+, The End of Civilisation premiered at the Tyne Theatre in Newcastle (UK) in July 2012, and was part of the London 2012 Festival. After screening in New York at Gagosian Gallery in October 2012, The End of Civilisation will be screened alongside a major retrospective titled I am also… Douglas Gordon at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. You can watch two short excerpts from the film below:

Based in Berlin, Glasgow-born Gordon is one of the world’s leading figures on the contemporary art scene. He won the Turner Prize in 1996 and is best known for his films and complex large-scale video installations, often presented on multiple screens. Gordon’s new exhibition also includes some of his most iconic works including 24 Hour Psycho (1993) and Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait (2006). 

I am also… Douglas Gordon, curated by guest curator Ami Barak, is on until 25 March. For more details visit www.tamuseum.org.il

You can watch a short film The Making of…The End of Civilisation by Northern Stars Young Filmmakers Academy here.

We'll have news about our 2013 programme soon and wish you a very happy New Year from all of us here at Great North Run Culture.

We meet Craig from Apeuro Freerunning at 6am on one of the labyrinthine roads of Fellgate Estate to film him running a Parkour line across a series of garages.

As with all the other locations where we have filmed so far the intention is to capture the Parkour movements in long continuous takes, almost in counter-pose to how Parkour is most often filmed as very short, fast-cut series of stunts. The long takes allow us to consider Parkour as a means to physically draw a line across a given space and for the Parkourist to perform a series of interactions with the materiality of this space.

The snow and the ice on this early morning give an edge and strange beauty to this estate, yet make it all the more difficult for Parkour as every movement carries a heightened danger. Pulling yourself up onto a wall is one thing in the summer – when the rim is crusted thick with frozen snow it is much harder.

Craig has been a Parkour runner for six years or more. For him this is far more than a passion or a hobby; he teaches the practice and is hoping to establish a permanent home for Parkour in the North East. He speaks with real clarity about what Parkour stands for, both as a physical and a mental discipline, a code of conduct that is guided by efficiency of movement.

A couple of essays on Parkour are informing my understanding of the practice recently and are contributing to making decisions on how to film. One way of thinking about Parkour is in terms of a dialogue between gestures and urban configurations. In his essay 'Nice looking obstacles: parkour as urban practice of deterritorialisation', Christoph Brunner talks about Parkour as a physical practice based on a philosophy of pure movement, the oscillation between motion and rest. Brunner speaks of a "relational model for movement to shape our everyday encounters with matter. (…) Obstacles, built structures and often abandoned or useless architectural configurations become sites for movement to activate the endless potential of these places."

Alongside the longer take tableaux shots we are filming a lot of close ups, of the runners – their faces, hands, feet, sections of their bodies while climbing – and of the material surfaces they engage with. Perhaps it is this very dialogue between person and inert material that will become central to this project – as if they set each other in motion, the runner activating the structures he engages with and the materials and surfaces calling forth particular movements, physical behaviour.

Later that same day we film Craig performing a side flip in a small wooden area that feels like a glade in the middle of this large estate where one house mirrors the other.

As we set up for the shot, a woman appears on her garden fence adjacent to where we are filming and calls me over. I expect questions as to what we are up to and the first question she asks is, “Would you all like a cup of coffee, you must be freezing?" Minutes later she returns with four steaming cups and a large plate filled with cake and shortbread. 

Last year we commissioned stand up poet, broadcaster and first ever Great North Run Poet in Residence Kate Fox to make a new show for families. This week The Starting Line makes its London debut as part of the Imagine children’s festival at the Southbank Centre in London.

The Starting Line, a funny, thoughtful, interactive family show about running and writing, was a big hit with families and school groups at Live theatre in Newcastle and the Manchester Children’s Book Festival. Kate explains how she came up with the idea for the show, and what writing a poem to perform live on BBC ONE while running the Great North Run was really like in this short video:

The Starting Line is on in the Foyer Space at the Southbank Centre on Thursday 21^st February at 3pm. For more details or to book tickets online click here.

Produced by ARC Stockton Arts Centre and developed in association with the Manchester Children’s Book Festival. 

The next morning we're back out before daybreak, the intention is to film into dawn – which a little later fills the skies with pink and red; worth getting up for. 

Today we’re working with Jake, another of the Parkour runners from the 10 strong group participating in the project. It’s even colder today and Jake’s line involves him climbing down a metal railing into a yard of garages set below street level – an odd claustrophobic space, walled in all around. 

One of the enjoyable challenges of this project is finding exciting locations along the route of the Great North Run that work both visually and for Parkour.

In the afternoon we drive further out to recce a location for filming in spring, an allotment park located underneath a massive power pylon. Craig and Jake discuss how they might tackle a number of different routes across the allotments; which structures will hold their weight, which section of fence allows what type of move. How their physical tracing of that space can become an embodiment of this site, a different way of describing it through their performance.

A lot of my work investigates ideas of community and collective experiences, our individual and social selves. When I first got in touch with Craig I had no real idea how they would work as a group and it’s been a real eye opener to see how closely these guys are linked through this practice that is core to their lives. Whenever we’ve been filming one of the runners, another will turn up as support. They discuss and work lines out together, test what’s possible, advise and encourage. Maybe this is one of the characteristics I find impressive about Parkour – the fact that so far it remains largely non-competitive.

The day finishes back at Felling Estate; Craig and Jake are suggesting a particular route over a series of walls. As we film into dusk it starts to snow again and while Jake is leaping over a wall big billowing steam blows out of a heating funnel, backlit by sulphur light.

More than half the material is filmed now; we are roughly at mile 8 of the course. I’ll be back in Newcastle soon for more explorations for the sections ahead; the next filming dates are set for late April…

Artist Melanie Manchot will be blogging from behind the camera for us while making her new film Tracer.

Commissioned by Great North Run Culture, the film will feature ten North East parkour runners, or traceurs, making their way along the course of the Bupa Great North Run. Featuring iconic landmarks as well as lesser known stretches of the course, Tracer will show the incredible feats these young performers are capable of in beautiful long takes.

The winner of our 2013 Moving Image Commission started filming with her team and a group of parkourists from Apeuro Parkour & Freerunning in the early hours of the morning on the day of the 2012 Great North Run. They’ve since been back to the North East to film on the Swing Bridge from one of the Tyne Bridge towers, on the Fellgate Estate and around Felling in Gateshead and they’ll be coming back throughout the year to film the parkourists performing along more sections of the route. Follow Melanie’s progress and see stills from the film on her behind the scenes blog.

For more news on our 2013 programme sign up to our e-newsletter, find us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter #GNRC13.

For our 2012 programme we commissioned Turner Prize winning artist Mark Wallinger to make a new film inspired by the Great North Run, Camera Running. So we’re absolutely delighted that last night Mark became the first artist ever to be inducted into the Great North Run Hall of Fame. 

These annual awards, established in 2007, recognise special contributions to Britain’s biggest running event from the last three decades – its ranks include elite athletes, volunteers, administrators, fundraisers, media and celebrity supporters of the event.  

We caught up with Mark before the ceremony to find out more:

“I am really deeply honoured to be the first artist to be inducted into the Great North Run Hall of Fame. I’m not an athlete but I’ve always loved sport and athletics and Brendan Foster was my favourite athlete when I was a teenager. The Run is of course a lot more than an athletic event. What Brendan created has now inspired nearly a million participants to push themselves to achieve something extraordinary both personally and in the raising of a huge amount of money for charities.

It is the greatest participatory event in the country and every participant has a story to tell. Mine began in 2005 with my first visit to see the run. The experience was inspirational.

I had been approached by Beth Bate, who runs the cultural programme which is such an important and integral part of the Great North Run. I was whisked from the start line to the finish by helicopter and witnessed at close hand what the run means to top athletes and fun runners alike. We had a great time working together and although my proposal fell by the wayside I kept in touch with Beth and Brendan and in 2010 they asked me to make another artwork. This was to be the film entitled Camera Running, a silent hour-long film from the point of view of the leading elite athlete from the start in Newcastle to the finish in South Shields. I worked with a tremendous team and was given special access to the course to achieve what I hope captures something of the experience of running the thirteen miles through all the gathered crowds but also has a dreamlike quality. The motion is very smooth and otherworldly not least because one realizes the incredible pace that a top athlete maintains throughout the race. I hope it succeeds as an artwork and as a new way of documenting this great institution. Sport and art are alike in many ways; they demonstrate how we can transcend the everyday and give life new meaning.”

Brendan Foster, Chairman of Nova International and founder of the Bupa Great North Run added, “Mark’s been a long-time friend of the Great North Run; having an artist of his international stature find inspiration in our event to create a film of this quality is a credit to everyone involved.”

Alison Clark-Jenkins, Regional Director, Arts Council England said, “It’s absolutely right that Mark Wallinger is the first artist to be inducted into the Great North Run Hall of Fame. His film Camera Running is a perfect example of the unique art work which Great North Run Culture has been commissioning alongside the run for almost a decade. Mark’s work really gets the relationships between sport and art, between artists and athletes I hope we’ll see more artists added to the Hall of Fame in the future, and I look forward to new commissions celebrating the North East’s culture of creativity and sporting achievement.”

You can read more about Mark’s film Camera Running, which premiered at BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art last September with an artist Q&A with BBC Broadcaster Kirsty Wark, and watch a short excerpt from the film here.

Artist Melanie Manchot was in the North East bright and early today filming on the rooftop of one of the most recognisable and iconic buildings in the UK for her new film, Tracer. 

Commissioned by Great North Run Culture, the film features ten North East parkour runners, or traceurs, making their way along the course of the Bupa Great North Run. After meticulous planning to make sure the shoot could go ahead safely, Melanie and her team filmed 18 year old Andrew Vasey from Washington performing parkour on the roof of The Sage Gateshead at dawn this morning. 

Tracer is a portrait of the landscape of the North East and the incredible feats these young performers are capable of. Parkour, or freerunning, has become more popular since featuring in movies such as Casino Royale and The Bourne Ultimatum. Melanie’s film proposes a new perspective on this exciting discipline: filmed in long takes, it focuses on how the parkourists trace a route across spaces, interacting with and becoming part of the urban environment.

Filming for Tracer started in the early hours of the morning on the day of the 2012 Great North Run when the team from Apeuro Freerunning performed an amazing display in the underpass of the closed central motorway in Newcastle city centre before tens of thousands of runners streamed through. Since then, Melanie has captured some incredible footage including one of the parkourists running along the top of the Newcastle Swing Bridge while in motion as a film crew captured all the action from the top the Tyne Bridge Towers. The artist also filmed a group portrait of hundreds of Great North Runners at both the start and finish areas of the Run on race day last September.

Melanie explains, “I’m working with a group of local parkour runners to re-imagine the architecture and spaces along the route of the Great North Run through the amazing discipline and philosophy of parkour. Through the parkourists’ movements these iconic, atmospheric locations are rearticulated and brought to life in unexpected ways. We’re very excited to be able to continue on our path into Gateshead by filming on the roof of The Sage. Andrew will perform a very sculptural move and handstand on the roof, which will look stunning outlined against the aesthetic of this unique building and the skyline beyond.”

Beth Bate, Director of Great North Run Culture, said, "We're delighted to be working with Melanie to show the course of the Bupa Great North Run in a completely new way. Every year we invite artists to apply for our Moving Image Commission and every year we’re amazed at the talent and the diversity of ideas out there. Whether they focus on the runners, the elite athletes, the landscape or its incredible heritage, it seems the Run has the ability to continue to inspire artists in new and exciting ways.”

Tracer by Melanie Manchot will be presented as part of Great North Run Culture’s 2013 programme in September; more details will be announced next month and you can see spectacular photos on our Facebook page.