Topic’ for this meeting was the Olympics.

Hardian Garrard, the Culture Lead for the 5 Host Boroughs (for the Cultural Olympiad) has given an informal presentation on visions and emerging plans for a major cultural festival in East London (incl. the 5 host boroughs). The idea is that it will develop during the 4 year Cultural Olympiad and leave an internationally recognised annual festival as a legacy.

For more information please download the meeting notes and a description of the Cultural Olympiad.

The next meeting will take place end of August. The date should be shortly announced.

The Cultural Olympiad is an integral part of the London 2012 Olympics, beginning the weekend of 26-28 September 2008 and running through to the end of the Games. During the Olympiad, London and the UK welcome the world in celebrating internationalism, cultural diversity, sharing and understanding.
The Cultural Olympiad will also reflect and support a number of themes, such as community projects, sustainable long-term benefits to cultural life in the UK, and excellence in the performing arts and creative industries.

Hadrian Garrard, Culture Lead for the Five Host Boroughs, comes to Arcola to explain how artists and organisations can be involved.

For more information about London 2012 and the Cultural Olympiad:

www.london2012.com and www.london2012.com/plans/culture/now-to-2012/cultural-olympiad-projects.php

Arcola Theatre, along with many others, is keen to deploy the arts as a means of brokering a new set of relationships and keeping Dalston real, by capitalising on the opportunities offered by the new indoor and outdoor spaces being. One of the purposes of this exercise is to ask the question “Must ‘adding value’ always displace the value that is already in situ?”

Please download the meeting notes and the project description.

The next meeting will be held on *Wednesday, 23rd July, 4pm* at Arcola Theatre.
We hope to see you again for further discussion about Creative Futures for Dalston.

Please circulate this information far and wide and bring your friends!

Also on display at Arcola Theatre are two new maps of Dalston. The first shows a first trawl of arts and culture in Dalston (currently 123 organisations and rising) and the second the existing Open Spaces in Dalston. The next step is to bring these maps together to illustrate the extraordinary potential for Dalston to connect cultural activity inside and out and to ensure existing cultural assets are identified, retained, enhanced, linked and recognised together, rather than displaced as regeneration of the area commences.

The maps have been produced by muf architecture/art, designers of the new library and Hackney archive for Dalston Square, and J & L Gibbons Landscape Architects, who are working on the design of the square itself with Michel Desvigne Paysagiste.

Agencies involved in this work include London Borough of Hackney, the London Development Agency, Design for London, Arts Council England, RIBA London, Central St Martins and Central School of Speech & Drama.

Friday 6 June at 2pm, Arcola Theatre: Next Steps – Local creatives invited to ‘put yourself on the map’ and contribute to a discussion of creative futures for Dalston.

For further information, download here the PR.