We put together this stonking application for a grant for a project that was to be run along the periphery of the Olympic Site.
The idea of the funding was that there would be a celebration of the Olympic spirit (cultural and athletic) in the parts of the Olympic boroughs that have experienced the inconvenience of the years of construction and can rest secure in the knowledge that the coming year will be filled with traffic fumes, that the public transport systems will be over loaded, that they will probably see nothing of the event at first hand , in short, they will have a horrible time with no benefits.
The area as it is now is a horrible construction site, before that is was just horrible.
One report from a social worker attached to a school in this area says that the children do not play freely or imaginatively, they are unused to directing their own outdoor play and many of the children are depressed or bordering on depressed. Not surprising. The flats by the school are crumbling and burned out and reminiscent of the Thatcher years. ( The flats are currently being brought up to decent homes standards and external improvements will follow. However this work will last a child’s lifetime.)
We sat in our office and thought of the way we could use this application to break down divisions between school, get kids and parents using open spaces, mix up the different communities, include children with disabilities and special needs in their community.
We wanted to do something quirky and fun with a curious oddness about it. We came up with doing a children’s Flux Olympiad.
The Fluxus Movement was art based. It was like the love child of Monty Python and the peace movement. Yoko Ono was a part of this movement. There was a surrealist element to the work, but there was a point to it too. The Bed-In for peace with John Lennon was a perfect example of a Fluxus event.
In the Flux Olympiad, which was planned in the 60s/70s but was not staged until a few years ago at the Tate Modern., the chess challenge would be played with four players or with all of the pieces being the same colour.
The javelin would be replaced by a balloon.
The hurdles were invisible.
The flat race was circular, like a caucus race.
There were no winners or losers, the fun was in the playing. Process not product. The elder or the baby was as likely to enjoy joining in every bit as much and without stigma as the cringingly embarrassed teenager or the confident and brash street Dad.
In our version of the event the equestrian event would be prepared in schools making pantomime horses. The sailing would happen in paddling pools with paper boats, the aquatic events would take place on water slides. The individual events would be prepared with schools who would introduce it to other schools, in a local park with parents present,
Ike a sports day. There would be home made video footage to be loaded on You Tube. Every one would win a medal, for some reason or another, whether the contestant was from a special school or was a high achieving sportsperson. Our plan was about having fun with people you did not know as well as with your friends in a situation where no-one could be top dog, but every one would have a great event. They would also be able to take these activities and replicate them at no cost for themselves throughout the Olympic summer.
It was a gorgeous idea. Simple, community building, play based and memorable. It would have belonged to ten participants forever and lightened the stark contrast between the luxury of the Olympic experience and the paucity of the neighbouring experience.
We wanted to use our Playwork skills to seed a fun and lasting way to be with neighbours, not to try to be better than them.
Of course we did not get funding for the project.
The rejection feed back told us that, amongst other things, the ‘ non-competitive emphasis of the project was anti-Olympic.’
There you have it. The rhetoric is clear. This Olympic extravaganza is an elitist event. There is nothing that should not strive for a sort of eugenic supremacy. The Olympic park is where this excellence will be contained . The peripheries will stay as they are to heighten the contrast. There will be no legacy except that of a healthy reinforcing of the status quo. If we are all delighted that we do not need to be ‘The Best’ , if we are content to be ‘good enough’, not perfect or a failure but content and happy with ourselves and each other, then the Olympics becomes a meaningless pantomime.
A ring of poverty is needed as a setting for the jewel.
And we have that ghastly logo more and more rubbed into our faces.