Last weekend saw celebrations for one year to go until the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Across the UK thousands of events have took place as part of the Open Weekend ’Showcasing the Best’ in art, dance, music, sports, heritage and film in the local community. The University of Portsmouth’s artist in residence Jon Adams was involved with his Dysarticulate 2 ‘flag’ project.
Dysarticulate 2 has just received an ‘Inspire Mark’ and is also part of Discovering Places – a London 2012 Cultural Olympiad campaign to inspire the UK to discover their local natural, built and historic environments. Dysarticulate 2 events were held across the country, both official organised events and non-official personal events.
On Friday 22nd July Jon led an event at ArtSway in the New Forest. Visitors were invited to fill the grounds with flags made by school children from Buckinghamshire and Hampshire in a project called Driving Inspiration, a collaboration between disabled artists, Paralympians and disabled and non-disabled young people.
Saturday 23rd July saw Jon at Canary Wharf in London, where a packed schedule of Open Weekend events took place. Jon said “The day was very hectic, we had people making and planting all day, and we even had a wedding party come and have their photographs taken with the flags”. Jon estimates that 1000 people made and planted over 6000 flags in Jubilee Park – a green space above Canary Wharf underground station. Jon was particularly pleased with the way the temporary flags mingled amongst the permanent public art in the park, and that when the flags were taken down at the end of the day several people said that they would miss them. Jon wants to thank the people who helped him at the event – members of the British Dyslexia Association and Colin and Petya who are both MSc Creative Technology students from the University of Portsmouth.
On Sunday 24th July the flags came back to Portsmouth as part of the Open Weekend celebrations in Guildhall Square. Flags were planted and bunting was strung around the square, but when the wind got too strong flag planters decamped to the New Theatre Royal where bunting was strung throughout the theatre.
Jon would like to thank the University of Portsmouth library for donating the books that were used to make flags and bunting.
Partners in Dysarticulate 2 include: University of Portsmouth, Purple Door, The New Theatre Royal Portsmouth, BBC livesites, Portsmouth City Council, LV21, Dyslexia Foundation, The Shakespeare Centre, Burslem School of Art and British Dyslexia Association.
If you took part in an organised Dysarticulate event, or if you planned one yourself, please remember to tell Jon about it. Don’t forget to count your flags as they will all count towards the 1 million we hope to plant by the time the Olympic games arrives in London next year. Tell Jon how many people participated, why you chose the location you planted your flags in and please remember to send in photos of your event which can be uploaded here. You can tell Jon about your event on his facebook group if you prefer. Or, you can send a disc and a note to:
Jon Adams,
University of Portsmouth
c/o School of Art Design and Media,
Eldon Building,
Winston Churchill Avenue,
Portsmouth.
PO1 2DJ.
