It seems like the summer Olympics in Beijing was just last year, with the memorable and constant chatter regarding Beijing’s air quality as well as a more than usual scrutiny on China’s government and its politics.However, tough roads are still paved and navigated during and after the Olympics as well, ones that are specific to where in the world the Games are taking place. It is this “before, during and after” the Games that has been explored in ADHT Professor Jilly Traganou’s workshop “London 2012: Space of Control / Space of Dissent” in London this month at the Royal College of Art.
Specifically, Professor Traganou will look at the realms of dissent and control that have been activated through the operations of this year’s London 2012 Olympic Games. Topics of discussion will include who the institutional or individual actors that participate in the creation of these two realms are, and what are their values. She will also explore how design (objects, systems, services, spaces) express their wills and articulates their acts, and what design can do for advancing certain positions that facilitate, balance or polarize the differences between these two realms. Participants to the workshop will include graduate students of both the RCA/V&A History of Design and of the and of the Product Design programs of the Royal College of Art.
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In order to increase the awareness of the human labor within the larger process of maintaining the Olympic site, RCA students Sadie Hough, Juita Jalaluddin, Colin Melia, Huishu Jia and Ritika Karnana redesigned the London 2012 logo based on Wolf-Olins’ original concept of it as a framing device. They infilled the logo with pictures ofindividuals involved in the cleaning and maintenance process of the Olympic site, alongside athletes competing in the games.
