Winter Olympics Residency
I'm going to do a short residency at the Vancouver Olympic Winter Games in 2010. Thanks to Youtube, I can travel back and watch them. There's hours of footage on the internet.
I want to feel like I'm a part of something, and pay homage to the Olympics which aren't happening this year. The Olympics have always felt very special and beautiful to me, and it's a huge dream of mine to attend a Winter Games in my life. Vancouver 2010 was especially an event I wanted to be a part of. After my obsession with Turin 2006, I was desperate to travel to Canada and see the Olympics for myself.
In 2010 I was eighteen and nowhere near being able to travel to Vancouver and afford tickets to any Olympic match. I remember seeing the Olympics on the TV screen in my then-boyfriend's dorm room at university and feeling a jolt of "oh, I missed it."
I never really got to watch the games that year, I was so in love and spent all my time shirking lectures and eating my boyfriend's face at any given opportunity. I missed it and a part of me was sad that I missed it, and that my life had moved on from the Winter Olympics being an important thing to me.
I came across this idea as I tried to write an ode to Jeffrey Buttle, a huge crush of mine, who was an Olympic figure skater. Looking up some videos of his performance in Turin made me feel that familiar pang, and I wished that the Olympics had artists in residence, so maybe one day I could go to the Winter Games and be supported to draw and write while I was there.
Looking up this concept of "Olympics artists in residence" I found out that this does actually exist, which is wild and makes me very happy, but also unsure as to whether I'd ever get the opportunity.
So I decided to make the opportunity for myself, since there is so much footage online of Olympic events. I chose Vancouver 2010 because there's full coverage of certain events, some lasting hours, and also it was the Olympic Games that I truly wanted to attend.
I aim to document my experience by writing and visual art. But also being a songwriter, maybe some audio will come out of the experience, too. I'm still unsure about it. My main aim however is to create a small collection of written and visual work which will encompass my feelings about reliving the games, perhaps through the lens of my computer and the lockdown, perhaps not. It's also a little homage to the Olympics which have been pushed back this year.
To me, the Olympics represent a great "togetherness", which feels like an antidote to the disconnect that many of us are feeling right now during this pandemic. I hope that in my exploration of the Winter Olympics I can reconnect to that "togetherness" as a remedy to the loneliness of lockdown.
I will participate in this residency for the next 5 days, watching footage of Vancouver 2010 and creating work in response to it. Let's see how it goes.
I want to feel like I'm a part of something, and pay homage to the Olympics which aren't happening this year. The Olympics have always felt very special and beautiful to me, and it's a huge dream of mine to attend a Winter Games in my life. Vancouver 2010 was especially an event I wanted to be a part of. After my obsession with Turin 2006, I was desperate to travel to Canada and see the Olympics for myself.
In 2010 I was eighteen and nowhere near being able to travel to Vancouver and afford tickets to any Olympic match. I remember seeing the Olympics on the TV screen in my then-boyfriend's dorm room at university and feeling a jolt of "oh, I missed it."
I never really got to watch the games that year, I was so in love and spent all my time shirking lectures and eating my boyfriend's face at any given opportunity. I missed it and a part of me was sad that I missed it, and that my life had moved on from the Winter Olympics being an important thing to me.
I came across this idea as I tried to write an ode to Jeffrey Buttle, a huge crush of mine, who was an Olympic figure skater. Looking up some videos of his performance in Turin made me feel that familiar pang, and I wished that the Olympics had artists in residence, so maybe one day I could go to the Winter Games and be supported to draw and write while I was there.
Looking up this concept of "Olympics artists in residence" I found out that this does actually exist, which is wild and makes me very happy, but also unsure as to whether I'd ever get the opportunity.
So I decided to make the opportunity for myself, since there is so much footage online of Olympic events. I chose Vancouver 2010 because there's full coverage of certain events, some lasting hours, and also it was the Olympic Games that I truly wanted to attend.
I aim to document my experience by writing and visual art. But also being a songwriter, maybe some audio will come out of the experience, too. I'm still unsure about it. My main aim however is to create a small collection of written and visual work which will encompass my feelings about reliving the games, perhaps through the lens of my computer and the lockdown, perhaps not. It's also a little homage to the Olympics which have been pushed back this year.
To me, the Olympics represent a great "togetherness", which feels like an antidote to the disconnect that many of us are feeling right now during this pandemic. I hope that in my exploration of the Winter Olympics I can reconnect to that "togetherness" as a remedy to the loneliness of lockdown.
I will participate in this residency for the next 5 days, watching footage of Vancouver 2010 and creating work in response to it. Let's see how it goes.