Miracle Marathon

About

Now in its eleventh year, the Serpentine Marathon series continues on its exploration of activism, art, anthropology, architecture, literature, music, philosophy, theology and science through a specific theme or topic of particular relevance in artists' practice and in the wider contemporary context. Each year, the Marathon topic breaks through disciplinary boundaries to identify discursive movements, as well as the parallels and points of encounter between the empirical, the political and the imagined.

Following on from the 2014 Extinction Marathon which presented environmental and human crises facing the world today (co-curated with Gustav Metzger) and the 2015 Transformation Marathon, which proposed ways of identifying and effecting change in the face of increasing complexity, the 2016 Miracle Marathon focuses in on ritual, repetition and magical thinking to consider ways in which the imaginary can not only predict, but also play a part in affecting long-term futures. This year, the initial concept for the Miracle Marathon was developed together with artist Sophia Al-Maria.

In 2015, the Transformation Marathon launched the first-ever broadcast of Serpentine Radio, the Galleries' online radio station, with twelve hours of the event taking place on stage and a further twelve hours on air. The Miracle Marathon builds on this model and extends it, beginning on Saturday 8 October at the Serpentine Sackler Gallery and continuing on Sunday 9 October on Serpentine Radio, which will be recorded live to a studio audience and broadcast online at radio.serpentinegalleries.org.

Participants, on stage and on air, include: Etel Adnan, Sarah Abu Abdallah, Sophia Al-Maria, James Bridle, Mark Cousins, Jesse Darling, Pierre Depaz, Manthia Diawara, Jimmie  Durham, Marcus Du Sautoy, Kathelin Gray, Caspar Heinemann, Calla Henkel & Max Pitegoff, Jaromil, Bhanu Kapil, Fleur Melbourn, Gustav Metzger, Walter Mignolo, Marie Ndiaye, Norman M. Klein, Carina Namih, Andrew O'Hagan, Genesis P-Orridge, Jussi Parrika, Riccardo Sabatini, Takeshi Shiomitsu, Marianna Simnett, Adam Thirlwell, Jalal Toufic, Adrian Villar Rojas, Kemang Wa Lehulere and Eyal Weizman.