Do Work: Penn Vision

Anyone who says that a track meet is boring is either a liar or boring themselves.

At any one moment, there are objects soaring across the infield, athletes launching themselves over bars, and starter pistols setting off waves of action around the track.

I’ve spent a substantial portion of my life at track meets. Once as an athlete, waiting in the bleachers and passing time playing cards, then as a reporter, dodging foul discuses and taking photos. Nowadays, I get to attend as both a fan and a professional looking for stories. 

Though I’ve watched many meets through these different windows, seeing the 129th Penn Relays through the eyes of SporArts artists was to see a whole new beauty in the sport of track and field. 

SporArts, an Instagram account with over 170,000 followers, curates photographs and art around all types of athletics. The account highlights artists at current contests and retro photo collections to bring a raw and unique side to relevant events. The account is run by Brendan Carroll, who is also my coworker and someone whom I text when a basketball game goes into overtime and I’m panicking.

“If you dumb down sports, it’s performance art. There’s winners, losers, and chaos in between,” Carroll told me, “The event is more than just the athletes competing. It’s the food vendors, the medical staff, and the bored family members in the nosebleeds.” 

Over DM connections, he brought four unique media artists to the three-day meet. Through their lenses, paint brushes, and pixels, the races came alive to the virtual followers online. Even now, as I scroll back through the collection of photos, I find myself in awe that we were at the same event.

“There will always be a group of people who say they hate art and love sports, and on the other hand, people who love art but say they hate sports. I think there’s a middle ground for both,” Carroll said.

Alvin Armstrong, a Brooklyn-based painter, was one of the artists contacted by SporArts to capture the event, as he saw fit. He smiled as he entered historic Franklin Field carrying his massive blank canvas. 

“I grew up playing sports, so I love this,” he said while taking in the medley of subjects, from athletes to spectators, in the century-old stadium. I was tasked with finding a plastic tablecloth to put down on the turf so he could paint on the infield.

Along with my other duties of working the retail booth, checking in with the press, and ensuring my emails were answered, I circled back to Armstrong’s painting near the finish line and in front of thousands. His broad strokes began to resemble athletes racing neck and neck.

Unfortunately, a torrential downpour, the first of the weekend, also started and continued throughout Armstrong’s session.

Over the three days, I also bounced from one photographer to the next, making sure they had everything they needed, careful not to hover, but curious to see how they saw the meet. I didn’t want to get in their way, only to witness the contest through their eyes. As the days went on, it became clear: the photographers capturing the stories were stories themselves.

Randy Xioa, a finance major who flew in for the weekend after classes wrapped up, has recently gained online undeniable recognition for his photography. Another familiar face, Erinn Springer—no stranger to Penn and even featured in The New York Times—was also at the meet, capturing fresh angles with her signature style. As I watched her twist and contort her body to position the camera just right, I still found myself wondering how she managed to capture some of the stunning images that went live just hours later.

Penn was Andreia Lemos’s first time shooting a track meet. The mixed media artist typically covers live music shows in Europe but found herself photographing the high emotions of young athletes on the starting line and dance contests taking place between heats.

Even to an untrained eye like mine, their styles were clearly distinct, each capturing a different story as the weekend unfolded. I’ve been to a hundred meets, but seeing this one through the eyes of such talented artists felt like something new. It wasn’t just the usual headline and caption—it was a collection of images that held emotion, movement, and meaning. A quiet kind of storytelling you don’t often get to see.