LONDON 2012 CULTURAL OLYMPIAD

Lancashire, UK 2010-12

As part of the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad, The Institute received a grant to work with the Fusion Community Theatre in Nelson, Lancashire to work with students on the theme of sport as theatre.

Over the course of two months, we worked intensely on sport design, made short films about sport, and even staged several public sport interventions on the streets of Nelson. The culmination of our project, The Big Game, brought all of these elements together. We organized a new sporting event for seventy people at the Nelson Cricket Club, where they played games invented by the students, reveled in the student led, announcing and entertainment, and won trophies created and designed by us.

STREETQUEST

In 2012 the project became more ambitious; the students wanted to run a street game. The students won a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund to study the history of Lancashire and incorporate it into a game. They chose the theme of time, and created an adventure entitled Street Quest.

In the game, players traveled through time from different parts of Lancashire's history finding clues on how to find a mother's lost daughter, all while trying to avoid the Time Police. The game was a huge success at the festival and a great learning experience for all of the young people involved.