To breathe out or die

Malcolm Peacock’s work To breathe out or die emerges from the artist’s sustained engagement with long-distance running as both a daily practice and an artistic framework. For Peacock, running functions as a compositional device through which he understands time, relation, and the stakes of embodied movement in public space. To breathe out or die is a choreographed, long-distance run performed by a group of Black runners across St. Louis, linking sites connected to the 1917 East St. Louis riots. The runners maintain synchronized footfalls, enacting what Peacock describes as “slow choreo,” a form of coordinated movement with shared intentionality that heightens awareness of bodily rhythm and mutual reliance. To breathe out or die is inspired by Peacock’s ongoing research into the 1928 and 1929 historic Bunion Derby, a nearly 3,400-mile transcontinental footrace, which included Black runners who faced targeted racial violence in the Jim Crow panhandle, including in St. Louis.