I want to think of stretching in terms of desire and as an increased capacity for feeling. Following Barthes, I see stretching as a form of self-extension that reaches out toward someone or something and as a gesture or a practice that has the potential to “baffle paradigms.” Stretching can be a question, a going out on a limb to offer an invitation that pulls up a potential moment of contact, which can be as subtle as a barely perceptible wink or as overt as a grasping for another’s hand. Stretching can also be contact, an answer to a question, a response to someone or something else’s extension, a reaching toward possibility. It can open you up to a desire you didn’t know you had or a connection you never imagined. Stretching is a start to creating environments of touch that you can turn and return to, and a repeated action that allows you to keep touching spaces that feel good.

Running is ultimately a stretch, an invitation to think about what it means to have a regular practice and to run through things at whatever pace, legging it out the best you can with heart and style.

Lindsey Freeman, 2023

The transmediale running club is led by Lindsey Freeman, sociologist and author of Running, a feminist and queer handbook of running. The club acts as a prologue to Freeman’s lecture that takes place Sunday 2nd February in the Auditorium.

transmediale running club unfolds across two stages:

i. (brief) Stretching
Meeting at HKW, the transmediale running club engages in a short stretching session pre-run. While participants engage in the physical preparation of getting ready to run, Freeman will narrate short passages from her book to consider the idea of stretching not only as a physical act but one that can be thought of “in terms of desire and as an increased capacity for feeling…a form of self-extension that reaches out toward someone or something” (Freeman, 2023).

ii. Run
Following the stretch, participants will be led by Freeman on a 5km run through Tiergarten and along the Spree.

The running club will finish up in time for participants to return to HKW in time for the day programme.

Accessibility: The run will last 5km which requires a moderate level of fitness. You are welcome to complete the run at any speed, including by walking, at any point. There is no obligation to run the full 5km.

Requirements: Comfortable running shoes, water, weather-appropriate clothing, and an openness to experiment!