Mayor Unveils Cultural Metropolis Olympic Strategy

With millions of people expected to visit the capital over the course of the Olympic year, the city will have “unprecedented potential to reach out to new audiences and sell the city’s cultural attractions to Londoners, the rest of the UK and abroad.”

As previously announced, there will be a 12-week arts festival to mark the climax of the ongoing, lottery-funded Cultural Olympiad. Public spaces will be “animated with artistic commissions, outdoor performances and free events”, such as Big Dance and Create.

A focal point will be the £19million ArcelorMittal Orbit designed by Anish Kapoor and Cecil Balmond, overlooking other commissions within the Olympic Park, whilst ‘Live Sites’ at other locations will provide focal points for a variety of cultural activity.

Boris Johnson said today: “By any measure, London is a cultural powerhouse. Here you find beauty, creativity and innovation, the like of which are to be found nowhere else. Despite fears about the recession and funding, there is much to celebrate about what the capital has to offer. With 2012 just around the corner we have a magnificent opportunity to showcase London to the world as well as to ourselves.

“This is not a time to be lowering ambitions. It is creativity, first and foremost, not funding that is central to London’s cultural life, and there is much to be done in terms of better co-ordination, reducing duplication and ensuring that the investment made over the next few years can have as big an impact as possible.”

Johnson also announced The Culture Diary, “a huge online calendar” that aims to index every cultural event taking place across London in conjunction with the Olympics.

The Cultural Metropolis strategy is now open for public consultation (until 6 September 2010). To access a copy online, visit www.london.gov.uk