London 2012 blog

Before joining London 2012 I had two linked careers, one as an arts manager and one as a practitioner - I DJ and used to manage bands. As you can imagine I've had some great experiences travelling from gig to gig, festival to festival. Playing Trafalgar Square with a huge Creative Routes ensemble- an organisation that puts on events by mental health service users. This was fantastic, performing a song with the repeated refrain '**** psychiatry', which debates alternative approaches to mental health. As you can see I have a strong passion for disability and the arts.

As a Disability Cultural Associate I will be focusing on developing the project 'Extraordinary Abilities', which is one of the major projects of the Cultural Olympiad. This will be a four year celebration of disability arts, culture and sport. The project is in its early stages and there is a lot to be done in different work areas such as creating the infrastructure, writing the business plan, agreeing funders and delivery partners, consultation with the different groups that want to get involved and working out a communications strategy. 'Extraordinary Abilities' is a working title - any suggestions of a name to replace it will be most welcome.

In between this all this work it has been interesting shadowing Steve Mannix to a few meetings. There has also been the welcome diversion of working with Mary Genis a Clore leadership fellow, on the launch of the Cultural Olympiad.

Read more of “An extraordinary opportunity”