Beginnings Marathon

Beginnings Marathon is a socially engaged project, realised as a series of durational performances for which members of the public are invited to take turns reading out loud the first page of a book that's important to them. From the start of much loved classics to pulp novels, theoretical treatises, obscure poetic texts, children’s stories, and popular histories, this participatory work fills the space with endless first pages, creating a collage of beginnings, openings, and incomplete narratives, read out loud in a variety of languages. Including invited participants and ‘open mic’ participants attending the event, Beginnings Marathon gives voice to the texts that people feel a special connection to, staging the act of reading out loud to create a communal space of listening, thinking, and imagining.

Commissioned / Presented by Kunsthalle Osnabrueck (2015), HAU – Hebbel am Ufer Berlin (2015), WHW – What How and for Whom and Galerija Prozori Zagreb (2016), Clockshop Los Angeles (2017), Kunstfestspiele Herrenhausen Hannover (2020 - online and in person), KANAL Centre Pompidou Brussels (2021). The Los Angeles version supported by a grant from NEA – National Endowment for the Arts and realised in partnership with California State Parks.

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