London 2012 blog

I am passionate about supporting young creative talent. One of the greatest opportunities we have culturally is how we work with the creative industries. London's creativity is driven from small, independent artists and creatives. They range from magazines that celebrate different facets of the fashion industry to collective design studios that conceive of "Tofu" as cartoon characters; basements where digital grime is being sonically mastered, and mobile 3D rendered games and type fonts created. These practices support and encourage new talent and they are a lynch pin in the UK’s creative successes. I am working at the way the creative industries engage both with London 2012 and as part of the UK-wide Cultural Olympiad.

Within London 2012 this gives me an opportunity to work with many new departments. Luckily, I have a "peach" from the Cultural Leadership placement, Gabre, helping shape and create this work with me. We are starting with a Design Audit of creative opportunities throughout London 2012, to identify areas where creative approaches can be incorporated into our work.

The other aspect of my work questions whether the Cultural Olympiad could engage with and provide an offer to the creative industries? Certainly the vibrant music scene across the UK is so intimately linked with creativity it is hard to ignore. Product and object design could link in with the Olympic Carnival for example, as could urban design, street design and street art with many of the other Cultural Olympiad projects.

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Culture to me is an encapsulation of everything that makes us complete. The way that we sound, speak, relate to each other, eat. It excites me as in this enormously and increasingly complex world, these ciphers become important to understand and to share.

My love of culture is aligned to my own background, and my interests in making the society that we live in a more inclusive and understanding place.

For many years, as a practising artist, I worked in Carnival (Notting Hill, Leeds, Bristol and Trinidad). I was drawn to the spectacle and the feathers, the huge sound systems with their soul vibrating base bins, and the excitement on the street. I had always poured over Carnival images - wondering how these amazing creations moved and vibrated. I called them in my mind 'living sculptures'. I started making them.

What I wasn’t prepared for was the joyous experience of the creation of carnival. The mas camp is a rich place - full of all sorts who drop in for the thrill of participation. Designing for Carnival you have to learn the tricks not only of great design, but how these break into individual tasks for your multifarious work force. You had to have tasks for eager 10 year olds; for the glue gun enthusiast; for the philosophical engineer; for the painter; for musicians.

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