Demos Projects on the 2012 London Olympics
The Olympics are a reflection of the world that creates them - a heady mixture of optimism, unfullfilled expectations and collective global dreams. For cities they represent an unprecedented opportunity to reinvent themselves in buildings, events and social innovations.
At Demos we have had an interest in the Olympics for sometime. In 2004 we published "16 Days" with our sister organisation Demos Athens, which analysed the potential of the 'Olympic Truce' to inspire peace building activities through the unifying principle of sport.
Later that year we published "After the Goldrush" which looked at how London needed to think about framing its bid for the 2012 Games. We focussed on looking at different types of sustainable legacies.
Now
Times have moved on and the games are drawing closer.
Stories about the spiraling costs of staging the games, who did the sums and how they did them have become part of picking up a newspaper.
But behind these stories sit bigger questions about what the games are actually for. How can we make judgements about the cost of the games, if we're unsure what we're getting?
After the Goldrush, highlighted the risks of relying on the games to deliver increases in tourism, sporting activity and employment legacies. But one thing's for sure, before the tourists, jobs and inward investment are chalked up, it will be people's everyday relationship with the games that makes them a legitimate public project and ultimately gives them a chance of success.
The games will need to be a mass-collaborative activity. Why?
Legitimacy
Firstly, as costs start to rise, people will begin to ask how they can have a relationship to the games, beyond what they get see on television for two weeks. How will the cultural programme, education programme, the administration of the Olympic trust enable people to have a relationship to the games?
Necessity
Secondly, in a world where digital cameras, mobile phone videos, flickr accounts and blogs abound, London will not be able to communicate a positive message to a global audience of 4.5billion people, without their active participation. London is now a collaborative brand - the era of the stage managed Olympics is over. The question is not whether people participate - but whether they will participate in a positive way.
Integrity
Thirdly, rhetorically the organizers of the games have called for participation in the games and people have responded by saying they want to. 100,000 people have expressed an interest in volunteering. Across the country community organisations, city councils are at the ready. What is energy and enthusiasm, could rapidly turn into disillusionment tomorrow without routes for this energy to be channeled.
The challenge is to find the systems that will support people's active involvement in the games. The Cultural Programme, The development of the London Brand, The Education Programme, the programmes associated with sponsors, represent key steps to achieving this.
The prize for London is considerable. The games will tranform an area of London, but the justification and reason for staging the games, has always and will always be bigger than just physical change. London and the UK, have a chance to change their relationship with the world - the goodwill transfered to London from hosting the games could give London a platform to lead and inspire a world less defined by national borders, as it turns to face the great challenges of the twentieth century. But such grand ends, are unlikely to be achieved by command from the top, but by inspiring innovations of people accross the country.
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New Olympics Essay: "The Post-Exotic Olympics". April 2007.
This essay draws on all our work on the Olympics. Focussing on culture, education and public participation in the games, it looks for lessons for London from the Barcelona games. It argues that while Barcelona's Olympics achieved considerable benefits for Barcleona, the model does not directly transfer to London in 2012. It argues that the London games faces a crisis of legitimacy, not of cost, and outlines the case and means for public participation in the games. It will be published in a forthcoming collection of essays about the cities of London and Barcelona.
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Our projects and recent research have been focussed on looking at participation in the Olympics and potential models for 2012. During these projects we have looked extensively at previous host cities and visited Athens, Barcelona, Beijing and the Olympics Study Centre in Lausanne. Our recommendations for the London Games have included;
The Street Games: An annual festival of sporting activities defined by local organisations, running throughout London's Olympiad. This would be a mechanism for redistributing the value of the Olympic brand back to local communities. A feasibility study supported by Groundwork and Cancer Research UK has been conducted. Contact melissa.mean@demos.co.uk.
A Million Eyes: LOCOG should set up a web based portal for young people to document athletes training for the games in their local area. They could do this in words, images, music and film, through the education programme in schools or the cultural programme. The site would provide a way for young people to engage with the Olympics on their own terms and would be infinitely scaleable out from the UK. During the games, when many athletes arise from obscurity over-night it would become a first port of call for people around the world using search engines to find about the starts of the games. Contact
charlie.tims@demos.co.uk
Host-Cities Network: The brand values of the Olympics rub off on the cities that host them. But this value is rarely aggregated. As a part of its aspiration to convey its connectedness to the world, and assert its position as a cultural leader, London should establish a council of Olympic host cities, that would work to raise the profile of and grant awards that support applications of The Olympic Truce, new initiatives in urban sustainable development and international partnerships between towns and cities. Contact
charlie.tims@demos.co.uk
Current Work
We are currently working with Creative Partnerships London East and South to look at education programmes, projects and learning opportunities for young people in schools accross East London. At the moment this is focussed on children with learning difficulties.
Download a copy of this report
e-mail: charlie.tims@demos.co.uk
