Literary Walker: Inua Ellams and The Midnight Run

For centuries poets and artists have taken to the streets for inspiration, wandering both city and country in order to seek a sense of the other, and a sense of self. From Wordsworth’s rural strolls to Thomas de Quincey’s opium-fuelled ventures into London’s darkest haunts, literary walks are part of our cultural inheritance. Inua Ellams - performance poet, playwright and graphic artist – is tapping into this history and re-inventing it for the modern city-dweller.

Ellams is an artist of all sorts – his poetry draws together rich-voiced romanticism, hip-hop, jazz and the silkiest of lyrics, his scriptwriting is mature and refined, and his graphic art is strikingly inventive. To add to this, he is now the curator of a physical exhibition that stretches across the streets of cities world-wide. In 2005, Ellams and a friend became impatient waiting for a night bus, and decided to make their journey across London on foot. Enraptured with the nocturnal cityscape and the darkened alter-egos of the night-time streets, Ellams dreamed up The Midnight Run. The project is a literal example of poetry in motion, as Ellams and his magican-poet-performer friends lead groups of people around the city by night, exploring ideas of communal space, identity, and urban development, and creating art as they go. The idea is for people to view their own streets, their run-friends and themselves with a fresh pair of eyes, in a playful process of defamiliarisation. From the perspective of a literary critic, Ellams’ eco-critical explorations are right on trend, and from the perspective of an art-lover, they are simply groundbreaking.

In his mission statement, Ellams explains the influence of The Situationalists, a political and artistic movement which rejected the commercialism of art in 60’s France, and sought to replace it with ‘real’ experience. The Midnight Run is just that – a physical, immersive, artistic experience. For Ellams, any city, anywhere can be a poetic playground, from impromptu story-telling in a darkened alley, to sunrise tai chi, to group writing tasks. I organised a poetry workshop with Ellams whilst at university, and got a sense of his innovative and inviting style. He has a natural talent for drawing out the poet in everyone, whether he’s performing himself, working with musicians, or gently teasing out ideas from his audience.

This gentle teasing is at the heart of The Midnight Run; the project asks us how we interact with our environment, and encourages us to do so differently. So many cities are increasingly filled with private spaces and private people – a fact of life connected to the ethics of The Midnight Run. For me, Ellams seems to be suggesting that private, restricted city space is closely linked to both spiritual and economic poverty. Even on a short bus ride in London, one can weave through many different communities of enormously different wealth, sandwiched uncomfortably together in disparity. By inviting us to look closer, Ellams is exploring some of the most pressing social and political issues in modern society, whilst creating a piece of peopled art.

Over the last ten years, The Midnight Run has spread from an independent London movement, to Spain, to New Zealand, to work with the Tate and the Southbank Centre, with the founders striving towards building a global urban movement. This is a growing piece of performance art like no other, with Ellams, a 21st century flaneur, at its helm.

Originally published in XXY magazine.

Valparaíso - how absurd you are...

Valparaíso, 'how absurd you are, you haven't combed your hair, you've never had time to get dressed. life has always surprised you…'


Pablo Neruda, Chilean poet and Valpo-lover, wrote these words about the port city which became his home. Friend of poets, painters and philosophers, Valpo is a curious little place which sits in a rather haphazard fashion on the hills of the Chilean coast. Over the last century, half-undressed with tangled hair, it went from being the richest city in Latin America to one of the most dilapidated, and has now settled into the architectural and cultural equivalent of distressed leather - run down, but unashamedly, and increasingly intentionally, cool. It's the haunt of bohemian Chileños, or people who want to be bohemian Chileños, of muralists and graffiti artists, and of enamoured travellers who stumble across it all, like myself. 


I'm not really a travel writer so I won't be writing about all the places we visited in South American over the last summer, but this one really stood out. The city consists of several cerros - hill villages - each with their own identity, culture, and pack of stray dogs. Each hill is connected by narrow passageways and staircases - which some crazy kids bike down - and century old ascensors. In fact, the whole city feels like a pedestrian adventure playground. There's even a slide next to one set of stairs on Cerro Alegre, just in case you're not a stairs-kind-of-commuter. Read; hipster. 

It's a city that has been furiously claimed, reclaimed, and claimed again. First the giant, colonial houses which were home to the wealthiest expats in the land. Then, when the opening of the Panama Canal diverted the monies away, came the city's darker years, with civil disruption and gang control in many parts of the city. Meanwhile, Chilean hazards such as earthquakes and fires in the hills destroyed much of the architecture. But, then came the most recent claim on the city - a joint bid from the city's artists and the city's elders. In reaction to a (really very bulky) glass building in the port's main square, Valpo was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2003. The Historic Quarter is now caught between its past and present - a memorial of the fantastic pastel-coloured architecture of the colonial period, and the run down building which now, due to the tricky UNESCO rules, cannot be restored. 

However, the art-filled streets are what make Valpo such a gem. These houses do not house art - they are art. Brightly-coloured murals of all shapes and sizes plaster the houses on the hills - art fights art as the home-owners invite muralists to paint their homes in an attempt to deter the more common and far less attractive 'tags' found on some buildings. Local legends such as the muralist INTI have displayed their work all over the city, and its as though the porteños (people of the port) have finally been able to reclaim their city as they wish it. 

From a culinary perspective, it's all about seafood and chorrillanas. The former takes its best form in empanadas filled with sizzling shrimp washed down with an ice-cold beer, the latter in a dingy port bar, where one is confronted with a mountain of fries, onions, pork and cheese. For the sake of your cholesterol - share.

Of the five South American countries we visited, and of the countless places, Valpo was the one which really got to me. I felt for its unsettled history, I wanted to know its people, and I am fairly sure that we will be returning in the not too distant future. Like many South American cities it is one of many juxtapositions; cosmopolitan with a bit of an edge, wearing its heart and its history on its sleeve, inviting you to simply wander around and see for yourself. Pablo Neruda said it better than I ever could, but for my part, it's just bloody lovely. 

All images my own.