Olympic Park Artist in Residence – 2010/12
Olympic Park Artist in Residence – September 2012 – December 2012
Commissioned by the Olympic Park Delivery Authority Arts and Culture Team and project managed by Sam Wilkinson of Insite Arts. Neville Gabie was given full access to all venues and sites on the Olympic Park over two years during construction. Without any preconceived ideas he was invited to respond to what he saw and experienced. Several works made during that time were made in response and with the help all support of all involved in the construction to whom the work is dedicated.
A publication of the residency was published by Cornerhouse in November 2012.
Freeze Frame
Based on an Olympic Delivery Authority ‘artists impression’ for the park on the river Lea, I was immediately struck by the parallels to Seurat’s painting ‘Bathers at Asnieres’ painted 125 years earlier. There was an obvious similarity in the physical landscapes, but it was the history of the painting and its Olympic Park counterpoint that fascinated me. Seurat was painting a scene in a newly urbanised Paris with the drivers of the change, the factories in the background and the newly urbanised working class on the riverbank. By contrast the Olympic Park in Stratford was a post-industrial landscape with sport and leisure creating change. The velodrome framed neatly in the artists impression.
Freeze frame features an engineer, landscape architect, security guards, builders, gardeners and a prospective Olympic athlete in the photograph. Once complete the photograph was printed in the Metro newspaper [an edition of 3 million copies] and found its way back onto the site in the multiple canteens. It has also been used as a billboard, printed to the actual size of Seurat’s painting, 3 metres x 2 metres.
The Olympic aquatics centre is built on the site of what was [1980’s – 2000] the largest artist studios complex [ACME Studios] in the UK. A former Yardley’s Perfume factory, several well-established artists made this their base.
To reflect on the artists and work made during that time I invited any of the hundreds of artists to contribute a work to an exhibition hosted in another former Yardley’s building in Stratford High Street – thanks to ACME’s support. The exhibition was opened by Sarah Weir, Head of Arts and Culture at the ODA.
During my time on the park, I met Semra. One of the 30 bus-drivers ferrying construction staff around the site. Born in Cyprus, Semra moved to the UK as a teenager. Semra is also an obsessive swimmer, so I had the idea for her to swim the first measured and timed distance in the Olympic swimming pool – which she did. She swam 5000 metres and we used her swim as the basis of two films. The first, telling the story of some of those working on the park – the second, a much more personal story of Semra’s own struggles.
Since completing the residency Neville Gabie has continued to develop some of the resulting works. In particular, this includes a new film with Semra Yusuf. The new film follows Semra’s personal story of arriving in England as a young woman and the challenges that she faced.
Every seat in the Stadium
Every seat. My attempt to sit on every seat in the Olympic Park Stadium prior to the Olympic Games. Over the course of three weeks, I managed to sit on 80% of all the seats – something over 60,000. Whilst the running tacks and field were quiet I was transforming the normally more passive role of spectator into something both more active – and exhausting!
9.58 seconds
Fascinated by the time dedication and costs in constructing the Olympic Stadium, I wanted to make a work featuring as many of the individuals involved as possible. I based this very short film – 9.58 seconds long, on Usain Bolts 100 metre World Record time. Splitting that time into 30 frames per second [standard video film recording times in 2011] I then photographed 270 construction staff. These faces form the basis of the film.