LUNGS 01

LUNGS magazine is a project by Optimistic Runners, exploring running as a ritual, a moment of self-reflection and creativity, it's a space where running transcends mere physicality and transforms into a true art form.

We take about 22.000 breaths each day. And yet — there is no air. Expanding, contracting. Silent or silenced. Mindful or fearful. How do we breathe in a world that takes our breath away, both in its beautiful and horrific vastness?

With LUNGS Magazine we see breathing as the antidote of our times, the medicine we need — and have — to create better futures. Based in Berlin and published annually in print, we seek to explore what it means to be human through the lens of movement, change, art, culture and literacy, amplifying creative and non-conforming voices, who examine the contradictions and multitudes of our times and being. Our purpose is to create a space of experimentation and a platform for stories that pull us back into our bodies and into connection.

By initiating something, we call it by their name and by doing so, spell it out through our language and bodies. The breath becomes a tool of initiation. It moves our thoughts into the physical realm, so we can embody them. By initiating something, we claim power over what we think is possible.

To initiate, is to restore, to repair. Not to escape but to face what is waiting for us. With this issue of LUNGS we are asking collaborators to use the theme of initiation as a metaphor of their creative expression.

• Publication date: 19 June 2026
• Publisher: Optimistic Runners GmbH
• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN-13: 9783000871689