Culture being at the heart of the Games

Culture being at the heart of the Games

4.16

4.17 One of the ambitions of the London 2012 Festival was to ensure that the cultural programme complemented the sporting showcase in and around Games time. The Scottish projects included in the London 2012 Festival certainly secured high profile and media visibility. NVA’s Speed of Light was captured in a BBC documentary and secured extensive national and international media attention (see Appendix 3). The Scottish leg of the Olympic Torch Relay also focused attention on the unique landscapes and cultural heritage of Scotland’s urban and rural communities. This included its rich songwriting and singing traditions as showcased through the Summer of Song project in 30 of Scotland’s 32 local authorities. The Big Concert launched the 12-week London 2012 Festival programme to a live broadcast audience in June, drawing attention to Scotland and to the wider cultural programme.

However, in considering whether culture was at the heart of the Games, it is also important to examine how projects responded to the values of the Cultural Olympiad in their programming. There appeared to have been a relative lack of awareness of what the Cultural Olympiad meant as illustrated in Figure 9. Ten projects indicated they had raised awareness of health and wellbeing; 9 indicated that they had achieved international understanding; 6 indicated that they brought together culture and sport; 5 indicated that they had raised awareness of environmental sustainability.

Figure 9: Responding to Cultural Olympiad values, by number of projects

Source: ICC/DHA Cultural Olympiad Project Survey (base 37 projects)

Conclusion

4.18 There is evidence that the Programme created new contexts, sites and settings for artistic, cultural and creative practitioners to develop and deepen their practice. New geographical settings were created or utilised and new artforms used the existing landscape in innovative and unique ways. Audiences were able to see the best of UK and international culture in Scotland, with the Big Concert at Stirling Castle and NVA’s Speed of Light on Arthur’s Seat good examples. However, there is a need for more robust indicators to assess the quality of artistic production to ensure that these judgments include the experiences of a audiences and not just those experienced in artistic or cultural production.