Julian Germain has been nominated as Artist of the Year in the The Journal Culture Awards.

Impressed with his work on the mass participation photography project The Running Line as part of the Great North Run Cultural Programme, the results will be announced at an awards evening at Northern Stage, Newcastle, on 31 March 2008.

You can now view and listen to extracts from some of the previous Great North Run Cultural Programme commissions.

Short video clips are now available for broken time by Jane and Louise WIlson, Inspiration by Alan Clare, Down To Zero by Neville Campbell, Runner by Michael Baig-Clifford and Ravi Deepres and ABOUT RUNNING by Suky Best.

You can also hear two tracks from Michael Nyman's piece 50,000 Pairs of Feet Can't Be Wrong, written especially for the Great North Run Cultural Programme, as performed by the Michael Nyman Band.

Ever fancied yourself as a short story or sports writer? Or perhaps you have some special memories of taking part in a big sporting or outdoor event or of watching a friend or family member train for months and finally crossing the finish line with their head held high - perhaps even the Bupa Great North Run?

The Bupa Great North Run Cultural Programme

Short Story Writing Competition

In October 2008 we ran a competition for aspiring writers to write a short feature about sport or the outdoors for publication in The Times and on the Bupa Great North Run Cultural Programme website www.greatnorthrunculture.org

This competition is now closed. Watch this space for an announcment of the winners.

The annual Great North Run Moving Image Commission offers £30,000 to an artist of film-maker to create a new piece of work in response to the world's largest half-marathon.

Premiered in the North East as part of the 2009 Great North Run Cultural Programme, this is an exciting opportunity for artists to show one of the UK's most popular sporting events in a new way.

For an artist brief, which includes all information on how to apply, please contact beth.rowson@nova-international.com or download the Word or PDF documents below.

Digital animation studio moShine have won a coveted award for their film which accompanied Michael Nyman's 50,000 Pairs of Feet Can't Be Wrong.

Satish Shewhorak, Michael Siu and Stephen Caie's innovative annimation, which explored an athelete's body during the Great North Run, won the Best Experimental Use of Online Video & Animation at The North East Digital Awards, held in Newcastle on the 15th May 2008.

Newcastle upon Tyne based filmNOVA’s co production with Liberty Bell; a fascinating drama documentary about the 1908 London Olympic Games, is to be broadcast on BBC FOUR at 8pm on Tuesday 12th August.

The one hour documentary which is supported by the Bupa Great North Run Cultural Programme, features dramatised scenes and interviews with some of the characters at the heart of the 1908 Olympic Marathon, the final event of the London games.

The 1908 Olympics, which is regarded as the first true Olympic Games, catapulted the games from casual, carnival affairs towards the international spectaculars they are today. However it was shrouded with allegations of cheating and unfair play, with numerous disputes between the British and American teams. It was to become the most controversial and dramatic games in Olympic history.

The Tyneside Cinema is hosting a special preview screening of Run for me, a film about hope, fear, chafed nipples and free Mars Bars.

Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard, the recipients of the 2008 Great North Run Moving Image Commission, have charted the course of the run with a dynamic collage of talking heads involving dozens of runners, their supports and spectators.

Iain and Jane will be talking about their latest film with Tyneside Cinema Curator Rebecca Shatwell. Event includes a complimentary glass of wine.

Friday 5 September, 6pm, Tyneside Cinema10 Pilgrim Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 6QG0845 217 9909 www.tynesidecinema.co.uk

Tickets: £5/4 concessions

The Facebook group for the Bupa Great North Run Cultural Programme is now up and ready!

Join the group to keep up to date on all the Cultural Programme activity, as well as see the latest photos and videos from our events and exhibitions.

Click here to join our Facebook group - see you there!

The Bupa Great North Run Cultural Programme shows at BALTIC are now open.

Run for me by Iain and Forsyth and Jane Pollard and Elite Runners, South Shields 07 by Beat Streuli are open daily from 10am - 6pm, except Tuesdays 10.30am - 6pm.

It's FREE to enter so get down to the Quayside and check out these great new commissions.

Internationally acclaimed artist Beat Streuli's photographs of spectators and runners at the world's largest half-marathon are being installed this week at The Sage Gateshead.

Working throughout the night, our installation team are erecting these enormous colour images on the front windows of Lord Norman Foster's award-winning buildng.

Visible from the Quayside and best viewed from inside the The Sage Gateshead, these photos overlook the route of the Bupa Great North Run itself.

The installation of Runners, Newcaslte/South Shields 07 will be completed this Friday and you'll be able to view the work until 11pm on Sunday 5 October.

You can buy exclusive Run For Me t-shirts, signed posters and bags designed by Chris Bigg from Baltic's shop.

With signed posters priced at £9.95 , t-shirts at £14,95 and bags at £9.95, it's your way of taking part in the Bupa Great North Run without even putting your trainers on...

Click on the link below to read what he has to say...

http://artscounselling.blogspot.com/2008/09/can-sport-inspire-art.html

New photos by Mark Pinder of the stunning installation of Beat Streuli's photos of runners and spectators at The Sage Gateshead.

A big thank you to everyone who turned up to Claire Morgan's talk at The Laing Art Gallery last night and helped make the evening into such a success.

An addtional thanks to those of you who had to stand due to the number of people who turned up. We're delighted that so many of you could come along and enjoy Gone With The Wind.

This weekend you can immerse yourself in literature thanks to the Bupa Great North Run Cultural Programme

Today - Friday 3 October, Bill Bryson's reflection on his visit to last year's event is appearing in The Times.

http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/diet_and_fitness/article4869293.ece

David Almond's new short story Harry Miller's Run will be printed in The Journal in the North East. on Saturday.

Keep your eyes peeled for news of our new writing competition which Bill Bryson will be helping to judge... 

We're delighted that two of the UK's best loved authors - David Almond and Bill Bryson - have written new short stories for the Bupa Great North Run Cultural Programme

Click below to read more...

The Bupa Great North Run by Bill Bryson

Harry Miller's Run by David Almond

Featuring Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard in conversation with Andrew Graham-Dixon

Friday 17th October at 10am

Prince Charles Cinema, London

Featuring Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollardin conversation with Andrew Graham-Dixon

And films by Jane & Louise Wilson, Ravi Deepres & Michael Baig-Clifford, and Suky Best

Prince Charles Cinema 7 Leicester Place, London WC2H 7BY Tickets £10 (£5 concessions).

Box Office: 020 7494 3654 (open 1-9pm)

The winning entries from the Bupa Great North Run Writing Competition are now available to download.

We hope you enjoy The Marathon by Chloe Bingham (10-13 age group), The Day My Brother Got The Runs by Niamh O'Kane (14-18 age group) and Daffodil Dreams (over 18s) by Heather Harris.

All the winners were presented with their prizes by Sue Barker at a glittering awards ceremony - The Great North Run Hall of Fame charity dinner - in Gateshead last night.

The 2010 Great North Run Moving Image Commission will soon be open for submissions.

£30,000 is offered to artists and film makers to create a new moving image work in response to the Bupa Great North Run, the world's largest half-marathon. The commission is open to artists with at least three years post-graduate experience.

The final work is to be delivered by by summer 2012, to be launch in the North East, as part of the 2010 Great North Run Cultural Programme, with an extract screened during the BBC's live coverage of the Bupa Great North Run.

The deadline for submissions is Monday 8th June 2009.

To register for an application pack, email beth.rowson@nova-international.com

The 2010 Great North Run Moving Image Commission is now open for submissions.

£30,000 is offered to artists and film makers to create a new moving image work in response to the Bupa Great North Run, the world's largest half-marathon. The commission is open to artists with at least three years post-graduate experience.

The final work is to be delivered by by summer 2012, to be launch in the North East, as part of the 2010 Great North Run Cultural Programme, with an extract screened during the BBC's live coverage of the Bupa Great North Run.

The deadline for submissions is Monday 8th June 2009.

The selection panel includes Amanda Ritson (Arts Council England), Soraya Rodriguez (Zoo Art Fair), Beth Rowson (Great North Run Cultural Programme) and Caroline Smith (curator and arts consultant) .

The brief is available to download, please see below. If you have any problems downloading this document, email beth.rowson@nova-international.com

Amy Feneck and Laura Mansfield's billboard  in Newcastle city centre is now installed above St James Metro station.

Amy and Laura collaborated with Wallsend Harriers and designers Dust to create this reworked map of Tyneside, which shows routes and areas runners use to train.

Amy and Laura's work also features in the Hit The Ground exhibition which opens at The Hatton Gallery on 16 September.

Check out this year's programme announcement here...

Claire Leona Apps has been selected for the 2010 Moving Image Commission. 

Her company Dog Eared Films will be filming at this year's Bupa Great North Run on 20 September.

Watch this space for more details...

Follow the Cultural Programme @GNRCP on Twitter for all the latest information and updates...

The Dry Run project is now online enabling you to track the progress of 10 runners traning for their first Bupa Great North Run.

Find out more about Wallsend Harriers here...

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/the-diary-kenneth-macmillan-iain-banks-great-north-run-diego-rivera-262-1777977.html

Amy Feneck and Laura Mansfield's text and image based designs for The Streets Do Flow are appearing in The Journal newspaper every day in the build up to the opening of Hit The Ground at the Hatton Gallery on 16th November.

Their first design appeared today...

You can see the latest images for The Streets Do Flow not once bu twice in today's Journal newspaper - check out the designs on page 6 and page 14.

The project by Amy Feneck and Laura Mansfield uses interviews and anecdtoes from a group of runners from Wallsend Harriers to recreate a simple narrative of a journey through the city from a runner's perspective. This personal material has been used to create a series of text and image based designs that appear as unexpected interventions in The Journal newspaper between 7 and 15 September.

A sneak preview of our new play for families at LIve Theatre, 13.1,  as well as interviews with the writer Mike Kenny and the director Paul James.

13.1 opens at Live Theatre on 16th September and runs until 24th September. You can book your tickets here.

Book your tickets now for Something Old, Something New at the Tyneside Cinema at 6.15pm on Wednesday 16 September.

This special event brings together artists Vicki Bennett and susan pui san lok in a discusson with Rebecca Shatwell, director of AV Festival, about their latest films. Join us to find out more about their work, which is featured in the Hit The Ground exhibition, and for a complimentary glass of wine.

The events is free but booking is recommended. Call 0845 217 9909 or visit www.tynesidecinema.co.uk.

The installation of Hit The Ground at the Hatton Gallery is now well underway, with walls built , projectors tested and signage going up...

Open from 16 September to 15 November, and with special opening hours on 20th September, the day of the Bupa Great North Run, Hit The Ground overs new insights into running and runners' worlds.

Join Beth Bate, manager of the Cultural Programme and curator of the Hit The Ground exhibition, for a gallery tour and talk.

Hit The Ground presents work on the theme of running and what running means to all kinds of people, from highly-trained athletes to enthusiastic amateurs and first-time participants. Hit The Groundexamines running as a physical and mental experience, as a struggle and as an inspiration, as fun and as a disciplined regimen.

Featuring work by Vicki Bennett, Roderick Buchanan, Amy Feneck and Laura Mansfield, NAME/Atau Tanaka/Culture Lab and susan pui san lok. 6.30pm, 6 October 2009

FREE BUT BOOKING ESSENTIAL

Tel: (0191) 222 6059

KMA's ambitious project Great Street Games is coming soon to Middlesbrough, Sunderland and Gateshead.

Click here to see KMA's latest work at Liverpool's AND Festival last weekend....

13.1  got off to a flying start last night with a sell out show at Live Theatre on Newcastle's Quayside

Tickets are still available for some of the performances - contact Live Theatre on 0191 232 1232 or at www.live.org.uk

...to everyone who made it to the launch at the Hatton Gallery last night, it was a fantastic evening.

We managed to grab some time with each of the artists and their interviews will be available to view here very soon... watch this space!

Interviews with the Hit The Ground artists are now online!

Vicki Bennett, Andrew Nixon of NAME and Atau Tanaka of Culture Lab, Amy Feneck and Laura Mansfield, and Roderick Buchanan  discuss their work in these short clips.

This year's Bupa Great North Run was the best yet with record numbers of participants taking part in the world's largest half-marathon.

You can see the whole event, including Colin Jackson taking part in the Great North Sport Dance on BBC iPlayer  http://tiny.cc/B1DPV

13.1 came to a close at Live Theatre last night, after sell-out performances and some great reviews in The Journal, The Northern Echo, 

Big thanks to everyone who came along - we're glad you enjoyed it as much as we did.

Check out the review from The Journal of 13.1 at Live Theatre...

Check out Design Boom's preview of Great Street Games here.

Just one week to go now!

Check out www.greatstreetgames.org for more info...

See thoughts on Great Street Games on the Pruned website here... http://tiny.cc/I8Znz

Read more about Great Street Games and the rise of urban gaming.

Get down to Centre Square in Middlesbrough, The Old Fire Station on High Street West in Sunderland or Baltic Square in Gateshead to take part in this world-first event... From 5.30pm - 11.00pm, until Sunday 1st November. See you there

Sadly the last night of Great Street Games has been cancelled due to high winds and severe weather. We'll be posting the results of these world-first games online soon, so watch this space...

Despite our last night being called off becuase of awful weather, we are pleased to announce the winners (by a long stretch!) of Great Street Games are Middlesbrough.

Their 30 points easily saw off competition from Sunerland's 12 and Gateshead's 11.

Well done to Middlesbrough and thanks to everyone who came along and played!

Hit The Ground at Newcastle's Hatton Gallery finishes on Sunday 15 November so you've just a few days left to get down and see the exhibition featuring Vicki Bennett, Amy Feneck and Laura Mansfield, NAME and Atau Tanaka, susan pui san lok and Roderick Buchanan.

The 2009 Moving Image Commission, Parade by Vicki Bennett, is now online at UbuWeb. Click here to view!

Amy Feneck, who worked with Laura Mansfield on The Streets Do Flow as part of last year's Cultural Programme, is launching her new book Running Associations at the Donlon Bookshop in London at 6.30pm on Thursday 4th March.

Part classical concert and part public séance, Silent Sound by Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard (winners of the 2008 Great North Run Moving Image Commission) is inspired by Victorian entertainers The Davenport Brothers.

Presented as part of AV Festival 10.

Sunday 7 March

Middlesbrough Town Hall

Tickets: www.avfestival.co.uk

Bupa Great North Run Culture 2010 is here...

We're delighted to be able to announce our plans for this year's sports and arts projects here on our brand new website. As well as seeing all of our latest plans, you're now able take a look through our archives from the last six years which feature commissions by Jane and Louise Wilson, Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard, Beat Streuli, Julian Germain, Vicki Bennett and many many more.

Why not sign up to our mailing list and be the first to receive Bupa Great North Run Culture news and updates?

Submissions for the 2011 Great North Run Moving Image Commission are now open. The Moving Image Commission awards an artist or film-maker £30,000 to create a new work about the world's largest half-marathon.

The new work will be presented as part of Bupa Great North Run Culture in 2011. Previous recipients include Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard, Vicki Bennett and Suky Best. Click here to find out more about about the project and how to apply.

The decommissioned Tornado jet which will form the basis of Fiona Banner's major new public artwork starts its journey from a scrapyard in Seaham, Co. Durham. 

Tornado involves the physical and conceptual transformation of a decommissioned RAF Tornado airplane into a large single bell. Situated in a busy public space to coincide with the Cultural Olympiad’s Open Weekend of 24-25 July and placed at a human level, the bell may be rung by anyone who encounters it.

For more information on Tornado, click here. 

The Journal have featured a piece on our plans for Chelsea Flower Show.

You can read the article by Dave Whetstone here...

Beth Bate, Director of Bupa Great North Run, is giving a public lecture at Teesside University this evening.

Part of the Temenos education programme public lectures, Beth will be describing the work of Bupa Great North Run Culture, set against the backdrop of increasing interest in sport and art. 

For more information, click here.

Gateshead Council's team have been working tirelessly to install the scale replica of the Tyne Bridge, complete with towers and Tyne river, trees from the Great North Forest and vegetables to promote sustainable living, not to mention the 55,000 violas that will represent the runners!

We've got photos of the garden's development - not long now and we'll be ready for the public...

To find our more about our exhibit click here and to find out more about RHS Chelsea Flower Show click here. 

Radio 4's Saturday Review team are impressed with our Chelsea Flower Show exhibit.

Tom Sutcliffe, Adam Mars Jones, Natalie Haynes and Richard Coles review the week's cultural highlights and pay tribute to garden presented by Gateshead and the Bupa Great North Run. 

"To describe it as a mock up of the Tyne Bridge is not to do it justice - it's virtually big enough to cross the Tyne..."

"covered with a riot of colour... of violas..."

"I loved that show..."

Click here to hear them discuss the garden on Radio 4's Listen Again - skip to 34.08.

You can view a time lapse video of our Chelsea Flower Show being built here...

The sun shone today, the celebs were in full force and the gardens at the RHS Chelsea Flower show were in full bloom. You can take a look at the behind the scenes footage of our exhibit being created over the last two weeks.

Click here to see more...

Hot off the press... we've been awarded a silver medal at this year's RHS Chelsea Flower Show. 

We're delighted with our win which is testament to the dedication and inspiration of designer Alan Smith of Redbox Design and to the horticultural team at Gateshead Council. Well done everyone!

Celebrities were out in force at Chelsea Flower Show and many paid a visit to our Gateshead exhibit.

From Twiggy to Ben Fogle, John Sargeant to Piers Morgan, they were wowed by our very own Tyne Bridge and display of 55,000 violas representing runners.  We were delighted to have brought our very own part of the North East to London.

The deadline for the 2011 Great North Run Moving Image Commission deadline is fast approaching.

Artists and film-makers with at least 3 years' post-graduate experience are invited to apply for this £30,000 commission to create a new work that responds to the Bupa Great North Run.

The deadline is 5pm on Monday 7 June 2010.

For more information on the commission and to apply online, click here. 

The selection panel have met and the artists have been shortlisted.

Beth Bate, director of Bupa Great North Run Culture, Alison Clark-Jenkins, Director of Arts and Development at Arts Council England North East, artist Simon Pope and Godfrey Worsdale, Director of Baltic, met last week to read the proposals made by applicants to the 2011 Moving Image Commission. 

The shortlist has been made and artists will be contacted in the next week. After meeting the shortlisted artists in July, we'll be announcing the winner... 

Fiona Banner discusses her new work Tornado, which involves the physical and conceptual transformation of a Tornado fighter plane into a large bell, in The Guardian. 

"From the outside," she says, "a bell is a clear object of communication. But in this case, coming from an aeroplane, it has quite a complex DNA."

Read more here...

Sir Peter Blake RA is producing an exclusive series of prints to celebrate the 30th staging of the Bupa Great North Run, sold through Opus Art. 

Sir Peter's ten new images will explore the heritage of running, the event's human element, its international pedigree, its humour and extensive memorabilia. 

Sir Peter's series of prints will form part of the In The Long Run exhibition at the Great North Museum: Hancock from 17 July - 17 October 2010. 

As part of a collaboration between Bupa Great North Run Culture and Opus Art, limited edition prints will be on sale only through www.opus-art.com. Each giclee print will feature a silkscreen glaze and will be signed and numbered by Blake, from an edition of 75.

Peter Blake is one of the best-known artists of the British Pop Art movement. He was made a Royal Academician in 1981 and received a knighthood in 2002. He is most famous for creating the artwork for The Beatles’ Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Heart Club Band album cover. He was the subject of a major retrospective at Tate Liverpool in 2007. 

Got a story to tell? Got photos to share?

Be part of the 30th Great North Run celebrations and have your story featured in the ‘In The Long Run’ exhibition.

Visit www.mygreatnorthrun.org to share...

We’re collecting stories and photos from people who’ve been involved with the Bupa Great North Run over the last 30 years. Your input will be part of an interactive exhibit at our blockbuster exhibition ‘In The Long Run… 30 Years of the Great North Run’ this summer.

You can upload your memories at www.mygreatnorthrun.org  then visit ‘In The Long Run’ at the Great North Museum: Hancock in Newcastle from 17 July – 17 October 2010 to see yours and everyone else’s!

Click here for more information on the In The Long Run... exhibition.  

The site for Fiona Banner's new public art project Tornado, for which a Tornado fighter plane is being transformed into a large bell, has been announced. 

The bell will be sited on Hillgate Quay next to the River Tyne in Gateshead. Hillgate Quay is next to the historic Swing Bridge below the Tyne Bridge. Tornado's close proximity to water makes reference to Banner's memories of the bell her grandfather salvaged from a war ship. 

“I remember the first military object I got excited about. My Grandfather's flat in Birkenhead was full of war memorabilia. When I was very young, and when he wasn't looking, I used to climb up onto his chair and ring the big bell he had salvaged from a war ship. The feeling of power that came from it was incredible - the sound and the space around it was way bigger than me.”

The decommissioned Tornado has reached its next stage of transformation, with the fragmented  plane smelted into 246 aluminium ingots. 

David Whetstone's published an article on his meeting with Fiona Banner in today's Journal when she described her thoughts behind the major public art project Tornado.

“I was thinking of what was the most simple form of communication and this idea of a bell as an instrument that doesn’t require a knowledge of music in order to make it work ... and also the shape of it. As an instrument it does look a bit like an ear.”

“Most of my work is about language and communication but this particular bell has a very unusual DNA. It comes from an object which represents the opposite of language, a breakdown of communication.”

Read more here...

We are proud to announce the release of 10 exclusive new editions with Sir Peter Blake, in collaboration with Opus Gallery . These new prints celebrate the 30th anniversary of the world's most iconic half marathon, and the heritage of running.

These giclee prints with silkscreen varnish measure 13.5 x 16.5 inches each, from signed editions of 75, and were printed at Coriander Studio, London.

Edition numbers 1-25/75 are only available to buy as full portfolios, with colophon page and custom-made cloth-bound case, from £5,000, and the remainder of the edition are available to buy individually, from £600 each. The price of the prints will be increased as the editions sell out. 

Sir Peter's Running Suite features found objects and images, many from the archive of the Bupa Great North Run. Prints in the series include Brendan, which features a 1964-65 season programme for Gateshead Harries, the athletics club that run founder  Brendan Foster was part of, Four Runners , compiled of cigarette cards, and Tackboard, featuring Sir Christopher Chataway and the South Shields crest - the town where the race ends and also where Peter Blake's mother was born.

Legendary Ethiopian long-distance runner Haile Gebrselassie has donated running kit to the In The Long Run... exhibition at the Great North Museum which celebrates 30 years of the world's most popular half-marathon.

After announcing that we would be taking part in the 30th Bupa Great North Run on 19th September, Gebrselassie handed over a running shirt, shorts and shoes emblazoned with his nickname Neftenga, Ethiopian for 'The Boss'.

The athletics hero has broken 37 world records, won numerous Olympic and World Championship titles and is considered by many to be one of the greatest distance runners in history.

His generous donation to the exhibition not only marks his participation in this year's Bupa Great North Run but also the enormous contribution that African athletes have made to the event - over 50% of the winners have come from Africa.

You can see Haile's kit on display at In The Long Run... 30 Years of the Great North Run at the Great North Museum: Hancock from 17th July - 17 October 2010.

David Blandy is the winner of the 2011 Great North Run Moving Image Commission. His new piece, which will focus on runners lip-syncing to their favourite songs whilst training for the event, will be featured as part of Bupa Great North Run Culture’s 2011 programme.

Blandy is an artist and film-maker based in London. He was the winner of the 2010 Times/South Bank Breakthrough Award and has had recent solo exhibitions at 176 Project Space in London, Baltic in Gateshead and Spike Island in Bristol. He is represented by Seventeen Gallery. 

Click here to visit David Blandy's website. 

Our blockbuster exhibition all about the history and significance of the world's largest half-marathon starts tomorrow!

Celebrate elite athletes, charity runners and volunteers with interactive exhibits, films, paintings and celebrity memorabilia, there's plenty to see and do.

The exhibition also features work from the archives of Bupa Great North Run Culture by Jane and Louise Wilson, Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard, Suky Best, Graham Dolphin, Stephen Gill, Julian Germain and many more.

For more information, click here.

Fiona Banner's Tornado bell has been cast at the renowned John Taylors Foundry in Loughborough. 

Using methods passed from generation to generation, the Tornado bell reaches its final stage of transformation. 

Install starts today on Hillgate Quay in Gateshead.  

Click here for more information on Tornado.

Click here to see interviews with artists Claire Leona Apps and Louise Wilson and with Director of Bupa Great North Run Culture, Beth Bate.

Tornado, the new public artwork by Fiona Banner has been installed on Hillgate Quay in Gateshead. 

Created from a decommissioned Tornado fighter plane, the large bell can be run by all who encounter it. The first official ringers will be pupils from Thomas Hepburn Community School in Gateshead on Thursday 22 July.

Forming part of the Cultural Olympiad's Open Weekend from 23-25 July and open to the public until 5 September, Tornado is a metaphor for the possibilities and understanding of change.

Click here for more information on Tornado.

PARKING AND ACCESS

Hillgate Quay is located immediately east of the Swing Bridge at Gateshead Quays. The site is accessible from a ramped access off the Swing Bridge by foot or cycle only. Please be advised that due to the unique nature of the site, the ground is uneven. 

No parking is permitted on the site or the surrounding roads. The nearest public car parking is located at Pipewellgate or Church Street. Coach parking is available at Oakwellgate near The Sage Gateshead. 

The nearest public transport is provided by QuayLink service Q1 stopping immediately next to the site on Hillgate. 

Fiona Banner's Tornado bell, created from a decommissioned fighter plane, is launched in Gateshead. Pupils from the Thomas Hepburn Community School were the first official bell ringers.

Gateshead's Hillgate Quay is home to a spectacular new piece of public art which the public are invited to ring. Tornado, which started its life as a fighter jet, was smelted and cast by the world renowned John Taylors Foundry in Loughborough using methods passed down through generations. The bell bears the serial number of the plane ZE728 and can be run by all who encounter it. 

Banner describes the piece as "a very simple form of communication that doesn't need words, an instrument that doesn't require music". Tornado explores ideas of transformation and the possibilities of change. 

Click here to find out more about Tornado and hear an interview with Fiona Banner. 

Over 25,000 people have visited our exhibition In The Long Run... 30 Years of the Great North Run at the Great North Museum since it opened on 17 July.

With interactive exhibits, costume displays and celebrity memorabilia, there's plenty for everyone to see and do. You can also catch up with some cultural highlights of the last few years with paintings, films and photographs from Bupa Great North Run Culture. 

In The Long Run... also features a brand new film Girl Blue Running Shoe by Claire Leona Apps. 

We'll be announcing details of the Great Late Night on 18th September and the Great North Talks soon. Watch this space for more information...

In The Long Run... is on until 17 October.

Great North Museum: Hancock

Barras Bridge
Newcastle upon Tyne
Tyne and Wear
NE2 4PT

0191 222 6765

You can read this case study and find out more about our achievements over the last 6 years here...

Children and their families have been taking part in workshops at the In The Long Run exhibition at the Great North Museum. 

Sessions to create your Great North Run t-shirt and to explore animals and movement have been very popular. The next workshops are Fitness Fun For All from 11am - 3pm on 17th 31st August and Marvellous Medal Making from 11am - 1pm on 24th August.

Come and join in the Great North Run fun!

For more information on all workshops and visiting the Great North Museum, please click here.

We're delighted to announce that the installation of Fiona Banner's Tornado bell has been extended to 22 September enabling runners and their families to visit over the Bupa Great North Run weekend. 

Tornado has been enormously popular with visitors and it can often be heard ringing on the Quayside. Great North Runners have been invited to come down over the big weekend and make themselves heard too...

Join us this Saturday for a very special Great Late Night at the museum!

The Great North Museum is throwing open its doors from 6.30 - 9.00pm the night before the Bupa Great North Run and inviting everyone to visit In The Long Run... 30 Years of the Great North Run. 

Come along to the Great North Museum: Hancock to limber up, have a free health check, enjoy some healthy smoothies and much more in this special one-off event that celebrates the world's most popular half-marathon.

Visit our new exhibition In the Long Run... 30 Years of the Great North Run which features interactive exhibits, films, paintings and celebrity memorabilia, from Brendan Foster’s medals to Dame Tanni Grey-Thompson’s racing wheelchair.

The FREE Great North Talks start this Friday 24th September at 6.00pm with Brendan Foster, founder and Chairman of the Bupa Great North Run, in conversation about the world's largest half-marathon. 

The Great North Talks bring together a group of people closely connected with the Bupa Great North Run to give a unique insight into the world's largest half-marathon. 

Friday 24th Sept, 6-8pm
Brendan Foster, Chairman of the Bupa Great North Run, talks about the origins and development of a North East fun run into the world's largest half-marathon 

Wednesday 29th Sept, 2.30 – 3.30pm
Dave Newton, Managing Director of Nova International, who organise the Great North Run, talks about sports marketing and branding this major event

Saturday 2nd October, 2.30 – 3.30pm
Nigel Gough, Great North Run Race Director takes us behind the scenes of the big day...

Saturday 9th October, 4-5pm
Celebrated writer David Almond, best known for his award-winning book Skellig, talks about his story Harry Miller’s Run, created especially for Great North Run Culture in 2008

These talks are FREE but booking is advised. Please call 0191 222 6765 to reserve your place.  

The Great North Talks series continues this afternoon...

Dave Newton, managing director of Nova International, who organise the world's largest half-marathon, will be speaking about sports marketing and branding the Bupa Great North Run.

This Great North Talk will be at the Great North Museum from 2.30-3.30pm.

There have been a whole host of workshops for families, children and young people at the Great North Museum over the summer.

People have taken part in fitness sessions and workshops about about animal movement, sporting designs, medal making. You can see see photos of the workshops and of people's creations here.

This year's Great North Run Culture has now come to an end...

With a fantastic outing at Chelsea Flower Show (with a garden seen by over 200,000 people), our first True Spirit commission - Tornado by Fiona Banner - on Gateshead's Quayside, and a blockbuster exhibition In The Long Run at The Great North Run, this was a hugely successful year for Great North Run Culture. We were particularly delighted to commission new work by Claire Leona Apps and Sir Peter Blake  which was also displayed at the museum show. 

Plans are already afoot for 2011 and 2012 - watch this space...

Are you running the Bupa Great North Run 2011 and based in the North East?

Artist David Blandy is the winner of the 2011 Bupa Great North Run Moving Image Commission. He is looking for a number of volunteer runners who are taking part in the 2011 run to work with on the making of a new film. This work, which will focus on runners lip-syncing their favorite songs whilst training for the event will be featured as part of the Bupa Great North Run Culture's 2011 programme.

Every year Bupa Great North Run Culture commissions an artist or film-maker to create a new moving image work in response to the world's largest half-marathon. The work is then presented as part of the following year's programme with an extract screened on the BBC as part of their live coverage of the Bupa Great North Run.

If you are interested in being a part of this work or would like to find out more information contact: Laura Harrington, Acting Director (maternity leave), Bupa Great North Run Culture, laura.harrington@nova-international.com or call 0191 2727033.

For those wising to be involved there will be an informal meeting in late January 2011 to hear more about the project and an opportunity to meet David.

We look forward to hearing from you

Many thanks and best wishes

Bupa Great North Run Culture

Great North Run Culture was established in 2005 as an annual series of new commissions celebrating sport and art, set against the backdrop of the world’s largest half-marathon. We are delighted to have been awarded NPO status. Great North Run Culture is committed to excellence, accessibility, participation and innovation, reaching audiences in the North East and across the UK. We are proud to collaborate with a wide range of organisations, venues and partners, and look forward to working with Arts Council England in the coming years to deliver our programme of commissions, events and projects.

In common with many writers, the only exercise I usually do involves lifting my pen. I tend to lead a nice warm, sedentary life, writing my poems while drinking a nice cup of tea and performing my poetry in arts centres and on the radio-where there’s more sitting down and tea. I’d describe myself as being like Sylvia Plath but cheerier, and like Pam Ayres but more miserable. Neither of them were renowned for their niftiness in Nikes, but now I’m prepared to embrace the Loneliness of the Long Distance Punner, and train to do the Great North Run. Not only that, but I’ll be reeling off rhymes while I’m running and spouting sonnets while I’m sprinting. I’ll be feeling the burn...and the Burns. Kate Fox

This residency will enable Fox to explore her own physical and mental journey through the months of preparation whilst engaging fellow participants and audiences along the way. She will demonstrate how sport and creativity do not have to be separated but can feed and speak to each other.

Kate will write poems over the course of the residency that will be shared with participants and public via this blog on the Great North Run website and via social networking outlets. By encouraging feedback, the poems will become a conversation and engage interest in the idea of the residency.

On April 5 2011 Kate launched her residency at the Great North Run Hall of Fame with the poem You Don't Look Like a Runner.

You Don't Look Like A Runner
 You? You couldn't run for a bus
or to the end of our street.
You haven't got the right shoes,
You haven't got the right feet,

You make Jabba the Hutt look graceful,
You just weren't Born to Run,
You couldn't pace set for a snail,
You're more funeral than fun.

You're more gradual than evolution,
Slower than a three toed sloth's brain,
You suffer more delays than
A GNER train.

You are...well you're hefty,
You've got wobbly bits and breasts
And bingo wings and lumps
That weren't designed for vests.

Your only experience of half a Marathon,
Is scoffing a renamed chocolate bar,
If you could you'd get to your kitchen
By driving there in your car.

I reply with all the numbers,
The pounds that I will lose
The pounds that I will make
The calories I will use.

The 50 000 other runners,
The 30 years of history,
The 21 water stations,
The millions raised for charity.

But I don't have to be a mathematician either,
And reach for numbers ever bigger,
To show the impressive shrinkage
In my sweating or my figure.

I don't have to be an athlete,
I don't have to make like Zola Budd,
I don't have to beat a record
In order to feel good.

I just want to feel connected,
To be part of something more,
To train my body and my mind
To reach something they've never reached before.

I still won't look like a runner,
And a runner won't look like me
But when I've done my 13 miles
A Great North Runner is what I'll be.

The Great North Run Hall of Fame honours a number of people who, over the years, have made a special contribution to the Bupa Great North Run - not just the victors from the Olympian world of elite athletes but also volunteers, administrators, media colleagues, fundraisers and celebrity supporters from the last 30 years.

Hall Of Fame

This is about respectful memory,

holding the connections firm,

like how as a North East poet, I join Kevin Keegan

in having had the odd

dodgy perm

As Michael proved

you can use the Great North Run to make you Ready

Or Lynn Proctor

Keeping the finishing line in her spokes

held  her steady.

As they remember the run forever

the run will remember them

Seeds become trees become forests

leaves growing from a single stem

The inductees aren't a handprint outside a theatre

or a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame,

They're the imprint of every trainer,

the whoosh of a red arrows plane.

They're the refreshing energy of water

gulped in the nick of time,

the unyielding Tarmac

the White of the finishing line.

Remember superstar splitshirt Kevin Keegan

who kept going when his trainers gave out

Remember thirstquencher Carol Heppel

who was Better Prepared- since she is a scout.

and takes memories of her orange stain

into the Hall of Fame

Remember postergirl Ingrid Kristiansen

treadmill training Nordic Mum

taking just an hour ten minutes

to polish off the Great North Run.

Remember load bearing Catterick Garrison

communicating, securing, ringing a bloomin big gun

Remember sane Sir Christopher Chataway

TV,MP,MD,

Roger Bannister's pacemaker

Still improving at eighty,

record breaker, bridge maker.

Talking of memories- we've eaten pork in Rich thyme reduction

Which sounds like something from Dr Who,

rich thyme reduction, the way the minutes pass quickly

when you're listening to Sue.

And those who've joined the 24

After tonight's induction

will forever soak up your memories

Like a rich thyme reduction.

They're not a handprint outside a theatre

or a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame,

They're the imprint of every trainer,

the whoosh of a red arrows plane.

They're the refreshing energy of water

gulped in the nick of time,

the unyielding Tarmac

the White of the finishing line.

An induction into the Hall of Fame

for those who've gone above and beyond,

connected forever to the Great North Run

by the threads of memory's bond.

Tyne and Wear Museums have received permanent donations of Great North Run memorabilia spanning 30 years from Bupa Great North Run. Many of these items were on display during the In the Long Run... exhibition at the Great North Museum: Hancock and they will now be housed in the history stores at at the Discovery Museum to be used in future exhibitions, ensuring ongoing puplic access to this fascinating collection.

One of the items donated was a running kit from legendary athlete and winner of the 2010 Bupa Great North Run, Haile Gebrselassie. Director of Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums, Iain Watson said:

“Haile Gebrselassie’s win in 2010 was another great moment in the history of the Bupa Great North Run, and for his kit to be housed permanently in another established North East institution gives it a safe and deserved place in history.We’re incredibly grateful to the Bupa Great North Run for entrusting us with these items of such international importance, and are glad and proud to be the keepers of such significant objects...”

In 2010 Haile Gebrselassie handed over a running shirt, shorts and shoes emblazoned with his nickname 'Neftenga', Ethiopian for 'The Boss', afterannouncing he’d be running the 30th anniversary race which he then won. The athlete has broken 37 world records, won numerous Olympic and World Championship titles and is considered by many to be one of the greatest distance runners in history. The kit will now be included permanently in the World Cultures collection at the Great North Museum: Hancock, marking the remarkable fact that over 50% of the winners of the Bupa Great North Run have come from Africa.

The other items donated by Bupa Great North Run are:

·        The finish line tape from the very first Great North Run which was held on Sunday 28 June 1981

·        Finish line tape from the Great North Run which was held on Sunday 19 September 2010

·        Great North Run train sign: in the 1990s, elite athletes were brought to the event by train, travelling from London to Newcastle on the East Coast main line. This sign was displayed on the train.

·        ChampionChip timing chip, 1994 - 2010: this small chip in white plastic casing is worn on a black Velcro ankle strap and triggered by electronic mats at the start and finish of the Great North Run in order to provide runners with an accurate, personalised time)

·        The 40 page official information guide, issued to runners competing in the first Great North Run on Sunday 28 June 1981

·        A framed Guinness World Records certificate marking when the Bupa Great North Run became the world's largest half-marathon on 22 October 2000 with 36,822 finishes

The Chairman of the Bupa Great North Run, Brendan Foster, said:

“In The Long Run was a really exciting exhibition by Great North Run Culture which gave people the chance to delve right into the event and find out more about its fascinating history and the thousands of people who’ve made it a success. We are delighted that a number of items showcased in the exhibition will now form part of Tyne and Wear Archives, meaning that the Great North Run is forever represented in the region’s museum collection.”

In The Long Run exhibition, which saw over 150,0000 visitors will be shown again this year from 18 June – 1 October where the race ends in South Shields, at the South Shields Museum & Art Gallery. It forms part of Great North Run Culture 2011.

        "Are you alright?” people ask with concern when I get to the top of some stairs with them, or walk up a hill. “Just a bit out of breath” I’ll say. I remember the metal stairs up the Eiffel Tower last summer, how it seemed like shoals of people had been training for these steps which left me feeling as deflated and greasy as a ham and cheese croissant melting in the heat. It’s safe to say that I am unfit. I have been unfitter for a longer time than usual lately, though since I was twenty or so, I have been through various phases of “Get-Fitness”. Some have involved step classes, some have involved a gym and two involved the Great North Run. (2002 and 2005). Doing my funny poems on stage in the summer of 2005 I got a big laugh by joking that I was a poor advert for both my therapist and my personal trainer. That wouldn’t have been as funny if I’d looked a bit more like a honed, toned, running machine.

In one way, I have a brilliant excuse for not being that. No one expects poets to be fit. We’re supposed to have sensitive, easily broken hearts, not ones that have an efficient cardiac pumping rate. I am also a comedian and they’re expected to have funny bones not sensible muscles. A comedian’s exercise should consist of lifting a pint and a poet’s should consist of lifting a pen, so either way, I’m not interfering too much with the natural order of things. Except of course, there is the persistent social pressure to be an acceptable size, not to be too much of a burden on the NHS, not to be one of the people whose several stomachs the camera pans down on the street when the telly news does another feature on “BRITAIN’S OBESITY! CRISIS!”.  Not being a natural joiner in, I try resist some of this pressure.  I’m the bride who managed to put on a stone in the run up to my wedding for goodness sake. And yet...and yet...I jumped at the chance to enter another fitness phase and do the Great North Run again this year. It didn’t feel like social pressure was bearing down on me- just my own increasing urge to feel better and be stronger after a few years of sitting on any urges to get fit- and my bottom.

I’ll be writing along the way. I’m quite interested to see if I can complete a poem while I’m running the Great North Run- but I don’t know yet if that’s realistic. I can write quickly- that’s why I sometimes get asked to write poems about events while they’re happening-like the Great North Run Hall of Fame event one above- but I don’t know yet how closely my running self and my writing self are linked. I’ll be writing poems about my training journey though and have started with “You Don’t Look Like A Runner”. I’m hoping to post another couple a month as a sort of alternative record of my training progress (I hate spreadsheets of numbers and times- they remind me of maths exams).

 I’ve signed up to one of the online training plans you can get from the Great North Run website and am currently getting emails every other day telling me to do a ten-fifteen minute easy walk/run. After three weeks I already seem to have more breath left at the top of the stairs-and some spare to put into poems. Titles have been coming to me while I’m running- I hope they’re poems that might make sense to you if you’re training too and I’d love to hear your thoughts so perhaps we can encourage each other as we go along...

      I've been reading Runners World magazine and a book for Women Who Run, so have this new vocabulary of running coming into my head. For some reason “Over Pronation”; basically not being balanced on your feet, which could lead to injury and buggered up trainers, keeps entering my brain as a fate worse than death and also something that I suspect I’m likely to do since I always wear the heels out on my normal shoes at one side. It also occurs to me that I have always been quite unbalanced in my attitudes to eating and fitness - all or nothing - and I really envy people who just naturally get it right. I suspect they’re in the minority though and that most people have to put effort into not going too far one way or the other.

Over Pronation

The book says to imagine

an invisible cord is pulling you up at the neck,

holding you in a straight line between earth and sky,

your feet rolling inwards,

as your heel strikes the ground,

your arch neither too flat nor too high.

You should be a weeble that doesn’t fall over,

your foot efficiently absorbing shocks,

your shins and hips rotating in alignment,

no strange wear on your trainers or socks.

But we all shift out of balance,

have too much stress,

or not enough leisure,

workaholic days,

or overdoses of pleasure.

Stuffing ourselves with fatty food,

or on too strict a diet,

over noisy neighbours

or a house that’s just too quiet.

Running yourself into the ground,

or barely running at all.

People never leaving you alone,

or out of friends that you can call.

Pronation is something you can control,

be aware when your life’s out of sync,

and you’re listing like a boat in the wind,

wobbly as a screen on the blink.

When things aren’t quite balancing,

when the right steps are passing you by,

imagine that invisible cord

pulling you up at the neck,

holding you straight between earth and sky. 

Winner of the 2011 Moving Image Commission, David Blandy, has been working with Great North Run participants across the North East for his new film Run A Mile In My Shoes.

Run A Mile In My Shoes focusses on a 13 individuals lip-synching to their favourite song whilst training for the Bupa Great North Run. Comprising 13 short films, one for each mile of the half-marathon, they will form portraits of the runners, contrasting the mundane surroundings of their training areas - city streets, rural roads, gyms - with the soundtrack of the song in their head.

Participants have been filmed in diverse locations across the region using a camera attached to their bodies to capture their lip-synching as they run. Run A Mile In My Shoes will be launched this Autumn as part of Bupa Great North Run Culture 2011.

Pop star Ellie Goulding runs six miles a day apparently. She runs before gigs in strange cities and she runs with her fans. I probably wouldn’t have identified that much with her, but I’ve just read an interview with her in which she says that this compulsion to be superfit all the time comes from her feeling of needing to be ready for something, maybe the apocalypse. I just had been jogging along Tynemouth Longsands thinking how much fitter I was feeling after five weeks. Glad that I could run forty minutes now without stopping, and that, in the event of an apocalypse, it would give me a better chance of survival. I did think that was a bit strange. I’m glad I’m not the only one. I’ve also just read a Zombie thriller called “Outpost” by Adam Barker whose heroine is a very overweight Vicar who starts running miles a day on the oilrig where she’s working, which eventually comes in very handy when a nasty virus infects the world and sends flesh dripping maneaters their way.   Survival of the fittest. Yes, to be fair, someone who can puff through three miles, just about, may not be guaranteed to take care of everybody’s survival needs in an Abby from “Survivors” stylee. But maybe I’d be less likely to be eaten. And everybody knows Zombies move very slowly.

Strong

My tendons,

muscles, sinews

are stronger now.

Stronger for what?

On the prom,

a toddler on a scooter

is pulled by a man and woman on rollerskates,

a couple run with their collie for a minute,

a Ford Capri exits the dogging car park

with a whoosh.

The sea is nearly a mirror.

I calculate the incline of the hill back up to the road

is five per cent,

stop struggling for air,

just breathe.   

One of my main training troubles, or so I think, is that I'm two stone overweight. I imagine I would fly along like Paula Radcliffe if I was thinner. But then,, this week, i noticed that my feelings of heaviness and lightness whilst running fluctuate and depend massively on my mood, the terrain, how long I've been running, etc. Perhaps weight is actually relative...

Your private straining faces

are on display

to the audience in their

drive by amphitheatres,

your breath is erupting as if you’re

a kettle on the boil

and you’re wetter than

you’d want to be in public

without a towel.

Beach cafe-Toyota-spaniel-hand-

hand-beagle-Micra-

in your stop motion animation

blinking, your feet thudding

so hard onto the pavement

the concrete shatters under you,

leaving two black potholes

after your every step.

Fe Fi Fo Fum.

There is just gasping and wet

and knee-sea-bluecarredcar-skating girl-

spaniel-wet-gasp-wet-gasp-thud-repeat

until

zoom out

to a shot of the seafront.

Sand sprays in an arc

to the kick

of a football,

a Fiesta’s silver alloys

become a kaleidoscope,

your limbs rotate

slowly as a wind turbine  

 lifting you off the ground,

to join a white kite

drifting

across

the bay.

The Great North Run Moving Image Commission is now open for expressions of interest.

Every year Bupa Great North Run Culture awards an artist or film-maker £30,000 to create a new moving image work in response to the world’s largest half-marathon. The work is then presented as part of the following year’s culture programme with an extract screened on the BBC as part of their live coverage of the Bupa Great North Run.

Selection panel members include Beth Bate, Jon Bewley, Alison Clark-Jenkins and Graham Gussin.

The deadline for expressions of interest is 5.00pm on Monday 27th June.

For more information, click here.

You can hear a new recording of author David Almond talking about his work, the Great North Run and writing for children. 

David wrote 'Harry Miller's Run' for Great North Run Culture in 2008. Aimed at younger readers, the story tells the enchanting tale of a young boy taking part in the Junior Great North Run and his chance encounter with Harry Miller, an old man with a fantastic story to tell. 

You can hear David's talk here. 

In my last few runs I have seemed to get slower. For example, yesterday I did my weekly Long Run. That's now up to 4.5 miles (having worked up very gradually with one "Long Run" a week since I started about 9 weeks ago.) I think my pace was about 18 minutes a mile averaged out and included some walking breaks. Well that's not very fast is it?! If I do the 5K Park Run that I have now been convinced to do this Saturday at that pace, I'll be at least 15 minutes behind everyone else! I know I'll probably be quicker, and you should go slower on a longer run; but I'm still at a stage where every run short or long, can feel as if I'm going as fast as I can at the time. Anyway, this commentary/poem and reflecting on my braces has had a strangely reassuring effect! I've also been fascinated to learn about mitrochondria- the bits of the cells that help us break down the energy needed to run. These are the cells that get passed down the maternal line and may have originally started out as bacteria that our body defeated and absorbed. Surely there's another poem in there somewhere... 

Holly Willoughby’s Braces 

The ceramic and wires straighten my teeth gradually
like Stonehenge being hefted back into place,
this realignment of the angles of my face,
off white marble tombstones
shifting to make space,
is gradual.

As natural forces push and pull their occupants ,
the edges of the sockets soften to jelly,
and ease the thousandths of a milimetre
progress of each day.

It’s comforting to know that the gleaming ivories
of someone off the telly
are joining my teeths’ lonely journeys.

Meanwhile my feet’s plodding miles
are increasing the mitochondria,
capillaries and aerobic  enzymes
In my leg muscles.

I do not really understand what this means,
but gather that you need to run slowly
to be able to finish races
more quickly.

Somehow this makes me less
Impatient with my brace.

These changes need to happen
at the body’s own slow pace.

It took at least thirty million hours
to shunt the sarsen stone to
where it could reflect the sun’s
midsummer face.

Speed of change, a change of speed
is not something you should chase.

Allow,
wait,
facilitate,
dare I say it,
embrace.

Kate Fox's latest blog entry and poem 'Muscles':

Determined to do a second Park Run, I ignored the mid-back strain that had kept me up for two nights and seemed resistant to Nurofen, and enjoyed another panting, straining jog along the Town Moor.

A slightly different route this time because of the Hoppings, so there was a surreal diversion through an empty fairground. It was all rather X-Files. Silent, rocking big wheels and rusting dodgem cars.  I was in the field on my own - a few people behind me, a bunch of girls who I longed to catch up with, but couldn’t quite accelerate to, ahead of me. The route was slightly longer, so I think I was slightly quicker than before. Camaraderie more online via Twitter, more than in person, but I’ll try talk to more people another time. In fact, another local poet Sheree Mack is keen to come with me and is the only person to have said of my 38 minutes 5Ks "Wow, that's quick!" so I'm hopeful I may have some company at the tail end.  It didn’t help the back though and I went to a physiotherapist for the first time in my life. He tweaked and prodded and lifted, and something seems to have shifted, though there’s still a sprained feeling and I’m being very careful. Anyway, it prompted this:

Muscles

Meet your Flexors!

Say Hello to your Piriformis!

You were already aware of your Glutes,

they just hadn’t been introduced to you!

They were all ready to join the party,

you had just left them stuck in the kitchen!

I know his probing fingers will work miracles

as I lay face down on a brown towel,

de-armoured in cotton leggings and vest,

but hadn’t expected the way the names

spark an illicit thrill,

as if I am looking on Google Maps

at  the houses of relatives

who do not even know I exist.

Psoas Major, Psoas Minor,

Iliacus, Peroneus Tertius,

are your underemployed lieutenants,

they only need a slight touch

to return to active duty!

His fingers encourage them to

remember themselves,

wake from under red folds

where they have been stuck,

stubborn and inert as secrets.

Let there be your Mesenteric Root!

Let there be your Hepatic Portal System!

Let there be your Intermuscular Septum of Otto!

In these plains with names like Dr Who planets,

I see scarlet globes strung together between branches,

telegraphing messages along dark galaxies.

So, your lines are open now,

vote now  as calls made after the lines have closed

may still be charged!

I struggle off the massage table with heavy legs,

wondering how soon I will forget

these new territories

but knowing I will never in my lifetime

return to this hour

in which I first heard their names. 

Kate Fox's latest blog entry and new poem 'Muscles' is now on her blog.

Click here to read her update...

Kate's latest blog entry and poem 'Run'...

A busy weekend of running ahead with the Park Run on Saturday morning and Newcastle’s Race For Life on Sunday morning.

The lastest poem 'Run' by Great North Run poet in residence Kate Fox addresses with something many runners have dealt with...

To read 'Run', click here.

Our 2011 programme is here, with a series of projects, events and commissions that explore sport and art, all set against the backdrop of the world's largest half-marathon.

This year you can see Run A Mile In My Shoes a new film by David Blandy, read and Tweet Kate Fox, our first poet in residence, discover Cerith Wyn Evans' Permit Yourself... and take another opportunity to visit the return of the hit exhibition In The Long Run: 30 Years of the Great North Run.

We'll be announcing more news about talks and events over the next few weeks, as well as details of our schools and young people's workshops, so watch this space. And don't forget you can follow us on Twitter@GNRCulture and join our Facebook group for up to the minute news and updates.

We look forward to seeing you this Autumn.

Bupa Great North Run Culture is recruiting a Communications and Audience Development Manager.

Great North Run Culture is an annual series of arts events, projects and commissions that celebrate and respond to sport and art, set against the backdrop of the world’s largest half-marathon. We are a not-for-profit organisation in the North East and programme work across art forms, working with artists at all stages of their careers and in partnership with the region’s best cultural venues and organisations.

We are looking to appoint a Communications and Audience Development Manager to help deliver our exciting and innovative programme.

Working closely with the Director, the Manager will be a creative thinker, have excellent project management skills, a passion for their work and ideally at least 3 years experience of working in a similar role. They will be responsible for all areas of external communication, developing new and existing audiences through the delivery of our communications strategy and our strategic business objectives, and raising the profile of Great North Run Culture amongst our peers, audiences and funders.

The Communications and Audience Development Manager will work 2 days a week for 6 months of the year, building up to full-time over the summer and early autumn to coincide with the Bupa Great North Run.

A full job description is available here. If you have any problems downloading this document, please contact beth@greatnorthrunculture.org

Please send a cv and a letter outlining why you would be suitable for the post to beth@greatnorthrunculture.org by 12th August 2011. 

Interviews will be held in Newcastle upon Tyne on 23^rd and 24^th August. 

We've captured Kate Fox on film...

Watch Kate train and hear her poem 'You Don't Look Like A Runner' here.

Karin Kihlberg and Reuben Henry have been awarded the 2012 Moving Image Commission. 

Their new piece will depict the Great North Run from the perspective of an extraterrestrial society who, contrary to the runners taking part in the event, are a race of static and solid objects; a race of sentient architectures, structures and materials. Exploring the physical, material and chemical make-up of the event and its participants, the film will show the world’s largest half-marathon in a new light.

Kihlberg and Henry's work deals with how the documentary constructs and negotiates the narrated image. Working with a range of media such as video, performance, drawing, events and publications they explore relationships between constructs of time, history and fiction, and their relationship to the viewer in time and space.

Karin Kihlberg & Reuben Henry have been collaborating since 2004. They live and work in London and are represented by Danielle Arnaud. 

Until now I have run naked. Naked in my ears that is. No music. Just sky and sea and the worrying sound of my own ragged panting.

This has been conducive to thinking about poems and focusing on my posture and pacing but, I’d started to get bored on the Long Runs (and to avoid doing them). I wondered if music might make a difference. Turns out, it seems able to soothe an anxiety I hadn’t fully realised I was feeling. It took me into my own world.

I started off with “Scouting for Girls” because I know I can’t help moving to that. Then, three miles in, I stuck the iPod onto shuffle and drifted off further into my own soundtracked movie, with pan and zoom modes. Even slower stuff like Leonard Cohen or Bob Seeger (“Running against the wind” made me smile as it came on just as I was cornering round to a view of St Marys Lighthouse).

I’ve had to resort to artificial means because I’m not enjoying my running as much at the moment. I peaked with a Park Run, then the Race for Life on the same weekend, and since then seem to have been in a sort of rebellion, where I’m thinking that I really love 5ks and wish I could spare my body the stress and stay at that distance. I think I’m worried about the extra strain the longer distance puts on my body. (Or, I really am more of a 5k runner and have found my personal form). I also think it’s to do with getting over the novelty of being able to run, but not being able to give myself the coddling and leeway I did at the beginning when I couldn’t do as much... 

My Running Animal

I am faster now than slow,

but too slow to be fast,

there’s no way I’ll be first,

but there’s a chance I won’t come last.

I am not a tortoise,

I am not a hare,

I oscillate between speeds,

I am a polar bear.

Kate Fox's latest blog entry and poem is now online.

Click here to read 'My Running Animal'. 

Since the back buggering run of late June, since thinking running would get quicker and easier more easily and quickly, since introducing unlimited walking breaks and since a few gaps in training and failing to miraculously lose a stone, I think I’ve been gradually losing the runner’s high that I had even a month ago. 

I’ve taken a grip back of it this week. A two mile run, then a three mile run, then a seven point five mile run, slowly, consistently and committedly. I didn’t expect any of them to be easy - and they weren’t. But the endorphins fizz was back.The sense of gradually increasing accomplishment had returned.

I spoke to someone this week who hasn’t had much chance to train for long periods, and is thinking about (or fantasising about) deferring, and somebody else who wants me to do a dummy run of the course with them on September 4^th. I suppose I’m somewhere in between. Just rediscovering my commitment, and remembering how it isn’t easy, but that doesn’t mean it’s wrong. I had talked about overcoming writer’s block being similar to the process by which you get your body to keep going even though it’s screaming “Wouldn’t it be easier to just sit down and have a nice cup of tea?!”. Seeing my Haruki Marukami book “What I talk about when I talk about running”, Beth, director of Great North Run Culture, reminded me of what he had said about suffering and we looked it up; “Say you’re running and you start to think Man this hurts, I can’t take it anymore. The “hurt” part is an unavoidable reality, but whether or not you can stand any more is up to the runner himself. This pretty much sums up the most important aspect of marathon running.” Wise words Marukami. Good music, and good moon and a bit of stoicism by the sea got me through last night’s run, now there’s just another 39 days to go...

Runner’s Block

I don’t know what to run,

dumbed by the blank page of the pavement,

awed by the Greats staring past me like Easter Island heads.

I resort to beseeching myself in parts,

calligraphing every inadequate joint,

lamenting the childish cursive of my gait.

Only yesterday, I was air and water.

Then I read Marukami quoting;

“Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional”

and picture the bulging tendons in his writing hand

as I step off an edge

and inscribe the air with the arcs

of my perfect, forgetful freefall. 

Kate Fox's latest blog entry, Runner's Block, is now online. 

Read about Kate's Marukami inspiration here...

How To Do Fartlek Training

I really like running fast, that feeling when your feet are nearly off the ground. Unfortunately my legs and lungs aren’t as keen. They tell me that I’m not Usain Bolt and won’t let me do it very much. 

I have enjoyed mixing things up a bit though in the last couple of weeks and doing some Fartlek. It comes from the Swedish for “Speed play” and is a way of training in which you vary your pace and mix up aerobic and anaerobic work. I like the spontaneity of it. It helps me feel that I’m not stuck in too much of a schedule...

How To Do Fartlek Training

Warm up jog for five minutes.

Identify a lamppost about 100 yards in front of you.

Realise that you have no idea how far 100 yards actually is.

Convert it to metric. Remember you have no idea how far that is either.

Sigh.

Spot an endearing spaniel in the distance.

Run faster until you reach the endearing spaniel.

Use stroking the spaniel as an excuse to slow down.

Realise The Apprentice is on in twenty minutes. Speed up.

Remember the series has finished. Slow down.

Spot two fit men wearing wristbands zooming towards you

at approximate speed of light.

Pick up speed until they pass you.

Decelerate dramatically once you’re out of their eyeline.

See some unnaturally squishy dog poo on the pavement just in front of you.

Execute two giant leaps.

Scrape your trainers on the pavement whilst pretending you’re moonwalking.

See crowd of youths gathered at bus stop. Speed up.

Get stitch at exact point you pass them. Slow down.

Accelerate to beat the incoming tide.

Stop to dry your trainers. And shorts.

See an ice cream van pulling away. Speed up.

Say the word “Fartlek” in your head.

Fartlek, Fartlek, Fartlek, Fartlek.

Run until you stop laughing.

Realise you need the toilet.

Sprint at speed all the way home.

The latest poem by Kate Fox, our resident poet, is now online. 

Read How To Do Fartlek Training here...

Cerith Wyn Evans's new work Permit yourself... is taking shape. 

The team from Great North Run Culture and Locus+ visited the workshop with Cerith where Permit yourself... is being created. The text has been cut from large mirrored panels ready to hang in the mobile structure. 

Permit yourself... opens at Alexandra Business Park in Pallion, Sunderland on 16 September 2011. 

Kate Fox's latest poem and blog 'Tynemouth Longsands'

I’ve still kept needing that Buddhist mantra; “Pain is optional, suffering is inevitable”. A hot Park Run where my breath seemed to forget that simple going in and out manoeuvre we’ve been doing okay with all these years. An eight mile run that stretched my sinews to their limits, but allowed a huge endorphin hit at the end. I went from outside Tynemouth Priory to nearly the path down to St Marys Lighthouse. Significant because that’s where I got married last year. In two or three Long Runs’ time I’ll be able to jog from home to marriage place and back under my own steam. Seems a good symbol of something, not sure what. However, I’d still been thinking about how it’s not good to ignore pain signals from your own body. Growing up I was rubbish at taking notice of what my body was telling me and was far too good at dissociating and cutting off from it. It suddenly clicked, mid-run, that that’s not what the mantra is asking you to do. It’s saying, be aware of your body, but know that that isn’t the whole story. Or, be aware of it, but not enslaved to every nuance; not all pain is a signal to stop immediately. Maybe. Anyway, the resulting poem says something I need to hear I think.

Tynemouth Longsands

Running, blurred

against the relentless motion

of sea and sky.

Something shifts; up and out,

in and down.

Not you being frightened

into flying like a moth

above your own head,

or banished like a spider

to scuttle beneath your feet,

lonely and relieved

as a devolved nation.

Not the electricity

generated by the pulse of your knees,

your aching shins

the radio waves from your ragged breathing,

the whooshing in your ears.

Not you leaving one arm

in the cardigan of you, but

realising you are

your own wi- fi router,

a self made of signals

and breathing yourself in

like a message in the air.

Kate Fox's latest poem and blog entry is now online

You can read 'Tynemouth Longsands' here...

Good news! In The Long Run: 30 Years of the Great North Run has special opening hours over the Great North Run weekend. 

Visitors to the famous finish area of the world's largest half-marathon can visit this commemorative exhibition, which features memorabilia, interactives, paintings, film and photographs, over the whole of the Great North Run weekend. South Shields Museum and Art Gallery is now open from 11am - 4pm on Saturday 17 and Sunday 18 September. 

See you there! 

To my shock, I ran ten miles. To my greater shock, for seven miles of it, I felt like I could carry on forever. 

When I first started my training in April, I knew I was inching closer to St Marys Lighthouse in Whitley Bay from where I live in Tynemouth. I kept seeing it before I turned back round, rising white and tall, often from a sea haze. “I’ll run there by September” I resolved. Well, I did it. The reason it was special was because I got married there last May. It was a heck of a difficult journey to be able to meet and recognise a nice man and commit to him- now my body has made that journey the hard way too! I thought I might not, as I’d had some panic runs the fortnight before, overdone it by trying to suddenly go faster than my body’s (slow) pace and got very wheezy. I was kind to myself, pulled back for a few days, and must have pulled the energy back to do the ten.

Two women I’ve been chatting to about their training were both on the verge of not being kind to themselves, and, much as I’m obviously not an expert, I was able to jump in and urge them both not to overdo it. I imagine it’s a common error in us beginner runners. My friend said her trainer used to say to her “Always do less than you want to do”. It’s counter-instinctive- but I bet it prevents alot of injuries! 

My, probably penultimate, blog poem was inspired by the Great North Run exhibition at South Shields Museum. Lots of memorabilia from the 30 years of the event. The one that most caught my eye was the correspondence in which Brendan Foster asked for permission to hold “a fun run”;

If, however you decide...*

*Last line of discouraging reply from the Northumbria Chief Constable to Brendan Foster’s letter asking permission to close roads for the first Great North Run in 1981

If, however you decide,

old ladies will blast Chariots of Fire

from their windows

Armies will be instructed,

calendars will be constructed,

it will grow and grow. 

Men and women in iron chariots

will break records

with bleeding hands.

Millions will make resolutions

for thirteen miles of road,

surprise themselves by South Shields sands.

Lives will be saved and ended here,

arteries unblocked, pathways unlocked,

our city spaces will never look the same,

we’ll see bodies move in the light of day,

that work can come from play,

crowds will choose their own frame.

They will become strange fruit and superheroes,

they will discover their best and beat it,

set an impossible goal and meet it. 

Mountains of litter, laughter, money, prayers

will be unleashed, the timid hopes we daren’t voice,

you will contradict our worst fears.

We will carry on thinking as far as thirteen miles over the horizon,

as tall as a sixty six foot Angel,

as long as a bridge spanning a river for a thousand years.

**

As, so many of us running, I am going to be raising money. Mine is going to the National Autistic Society who have helped me with research for a show I’m writing about Autism, and the way that autistic traits are more common in artists and scientists and the general population than is generally thought. So, here’s a cheeky mention of my fundraising page if you can spare a pen’worth or two for a poet;www.justgiving.com/kate-fox1.

Good luck you giant shadow army of runners getting last minute runs in, and loading up on those carbs- and remember- be kind to yourselves!  

Kate Fox's latest poem is now online.

Click here to read about the final stages of her training and a poem about how it all began...

Run A Mile In My Shoes, by David Blandy, is now open. 

Visit Run A Mile In My Shoes at NewBridge Space on New Bridge Street West in Newcastle to see the exhibition and catch a glimpse into what helps motivate and inspire Great North Runners.... their music.  

A round up of this year's Great North Run Culture is featured on The Guardian's arts blog. 

From South Shields Museum and Art Gallery to David Blandy's installation, from Cerith Wyn Evans to Kate Fox, click here to read about what we've been up to...

A new poetry map of the route of the Great North Run has been created by pupils from schools along the course.

Great North Run poet in residence Kate Fox worked with seven schools along the route of the world's largest half-marathon. They wrote poems inspired by runners, the route and the big day which together form a poetry map of the course from Newcastle through Gateshead to South Shields. 

Click here to see the poetry map and listen to the poems.

You can read more information about Kate's workshops here.

The big day arrives... Kate shares her thoughts about taking part in the 2011 Bupa Great North Run in her final poem. 

Kate Fox has written her final poem as the Great North Run poet in residence.

Taking in fancy dress runners, the Red Arrows, hope, exhaustion and the fridge man, Kate's final blog can be read here... 

Mark Wallinger visited the 2011 Bupa Great North Run to start work on a new film for next year's culture programme.

The Turner Prize winner is creating an hour long single shot film from the viewpoint of the lead male athlete, taking in the open field from Newcastle through Gateshead out to South Shields. Shot on an HD camera from a specially modified vehicle, the film will form part of next year's culture programme.

We will be making announcements about our upcoming projects throughout the year so watch this space... 

Kate Fox talks about her Great North Run residency.

Her athletic poetry may be over for now but we've a great interview with Kate about her residency, where she talks about her hopes and plans for the 2011 event.

You can watch it here.

New photographs by Colin Davison of Cerith Wyn Evan's breathtaking installation Permit yourself... are online now.

In the heart of one of Sunderland's industrial quarters, Permit youself... is a large-scale kinetic sculpture formed from double-sided mirrors, with text intricately cut out of each panel and assembled as a huge mobile. 

This co-commission with Locus+ is open until 23 October, so you've just over a week left to see it...

We want to say a huge thanks to the 101,500 of you took part in Great North Run Culture this year – whether it was to see an exhibition, participate in a workshop, listen to an artist talk, come to an event or read Kate Fox’s fabulous poetry - or the 2 million of you who watched us on BBC ONE! - thank you all.

Finally, we’re very grateful to our funders, Arts Council England, Bupa Great North Run and the Barbour Foundation, and to all the partners, volunteers and venues we work with every year who make Bupa Great North Run Culture possible.

See you all next year!

I have been working on my Changemakers project for a couple of months now and things are really beginning to take off.

The project consists of two main elements:

1) Helping the team to develop communications strategies that will reach and engage a younger audience and also

2) Working with GNRC’s poet in residence from last year, Kate Fox, to create workshops for 11 – 14 year olds. These will provide the research and backbone for Kate’s new show ‘The starting line’ which will be performed during the Great North Run Culture 2012 programme, and produced by the ARC in Stockton.

Last week I managed to get some work done on both elements of the project on the same day! On Tuesday I came to the GNRC office to present some research I had collected on successful and not-so successful examples of communications to target and captivate younger people, from which I made some more general and useful conclusions about what works for young people and what really doesn’t on Facebook and Twitter. We figured that getting the balance between cultural jargon-loaded and random ‘trying too hard’ posts/ tweets is crucial!

After this I went to Northern Stage for a meeting with Kate Fox herself. Over coffee, we discussed the nature of the research element of her forthcoming workshops and her ideas about the link between creativity (writing) and activity (running). We pondered the questions of what stops young people exercising at that age? What would make us actively and independently choose to write or run? And what would convince young people to get stuck in and do rather than just watch? It is these questions that we decided to base the workshops around discovering the answers to; we await and anticipate some interesting responses from the groups.

And so, there’s a lot to be getting on with in working out the best way to discover these answers and get the best out of the groups in the workshops!