Arts and Sports
It understandably wasn’t front-page news, but it was a significant week for the Cultural Olympiad last week.
As I’ve written here before, there’s pretty much universal agreement that the Cultural Olympiad hasn’t been cutting through. Most of the population are blithely unaware of its existence, and those who are, fear it could be Dome Mark 2.
But at a meeting of Tony Hall’s Cultural Olympiad board – which the BBC sits on – there was the appointment of a director for the whole project along with an expert team. Ruth Mackenzie and her colleagues now take on the job of shaping and curating the Cultural Olympiad.
Ruth Mackenzie has been appointed director of the Cultural Olympiad
It’s not a bed of roses: the politics remain complex, and the timescales are pressing.
In theory the Cultural Olympiad has already begun – it became ours after Beijing though there’s a Winter version too – but if you take the current consensus that 2012 is the year that matters for the arts as well as for sport, that leaves just 23 months to devise great events that get the nation talking.
Some foundations are in place, of course, but we must hope they’re not the finished product; and Britain should be able to do much better since creativity in the arts and entertainment remains one of our national strengths. So expect a new Cultural Olympiad vision from Tony, Ruth & Co in the next couple of months.
The flurry around culture also made me think about another area where more work is needed. That’s sport participation.
I was over at Locog on Friday afternoon with my colleague Barbara Slater from BBC Sport talking to our partners there about the ways in which we’re aiming to meet the national target of two million more people being involved in physical activity by 2012 – of whom one million more would be taking part in sport.
The Streb Lab for Action Mechanics will take part in Vancouver’s winter version of the Cultural Olympiad
As with culture, there’s some valuable work being done at the grass-roots; but for such a stretching target we still don’t in my view have the big idea or the masterplan that will guarantee delivery.
There’s academic backing for that line of thought and previous host nations have similarly struggled to increase participation levels.
But the prize was really well articulated by a post on this blog by “nedafo” last September: “We will only turn the UK into a sporting nation if we can encourage the population to take up and participate in sport for most of their adult lives” – to which I replied “I don’t think the Sport Legacy programme is anything like as well-developed as it needs to be now”, and that remains true. It has to move up the agenda in 2010, and we’re on the case.
A simple couple of questions, though. Do you know anyone who has already been inspired to take part in more physical activity because of the Olympics coming to London? And what would make you, your family or friends do more?
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