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Bread and Five-Ring Circuses: Art, Activism, and the Olympic Games in Vancouver and London KIRSTEN FORKERT I t’s 2003 inVancouver. I’m getting out of a limo, wearing a fake leopard-print coat, a wig, and disco boots. The Billionaires for the Olympics are crashing a promotional event in connection with the bid for the Vancouver hosting of the 2010 Olympic Games. The flyers we hand out draw attention to issues such as the loss of low-income housing and the fact that most people will not be able to afford tickets for the opening ceremonies. Emulating the reverse-psychology of activist group Billionaires for Bush, we are dressing up as rich people and loudly proclaiming how much we loved the Olympics, trying to show that despite both the populist, feel-good rhetoric surrounding the Vancouver bid, and despite the presence of community art and children ’s activities, the Olympics are not really for everyone, and that, like Montreal, we could end up paying for it for a long, long time. My involvement in the action came out of a conversation with some artist and activist friends who were concerned not only with the impact of the games on the city but also with the largely promotional role envisaged for culture.At the time, Olympics-related arts funding was being made available ; from the perspective of cash-strapped arts organizations, these grants could provide some much-needed income. A common argument in favour of applying was that one could“take the money and run,”using it to program events that were critical of the Olympics. If the response of arts organizations was largely pragmatic, that of many activists was much more skeptical: why implicate oneself in a process that would result in the destruction of affordable housing, particularly in extremely poor neighbourhoods such as the Downtown Eastside (DTES), the destruction of First Nations territory, and the celebration of global capitalism? At the time, Vancouver was holding a referendum on whether or not to host the games, an initiative of former mayor Larry Campbell. As the bid process did not actually require such a referendum, this could be seen as a 147 rare case of actually asking for public input. The results were 64% for, 36% against, with a 50% turnout,1 although predictably, the Yes side spent significantly more on promotion than did the No side.Although these results did not necessarily represent overwhelming support for the games as such, when I think back to that time I remember an overwhelming sense that being critical of the games, let alone participating in protest actions, was an unpopular position. To be against the games was to negate so many hopes, dreams, and aspirations, and to play into the guilty self-stereotype of Vancouver as a “no fun city.” Some of these hopes and aspirations, as I recall them, were also connected to the rhetoric of city branding and its uneasy mix of internationalism and local promotion: putting Vancouver “on the map,” making it “world class,” celebrating its “uniqueness,” and so on. These aspirations were shared by the art world, reflected in attempts to market the Vancouver art scene through touring exhibitions such as Baja to Vancouver (2003–2004) and Intertidal: Vancouver Art and Artists (2005–2006). The Figure of Beijing In 2008, I participated in a second anti-Olympics protest, this time in London (UK), which will host the Olympic games in 2012, two years after Vancouver. At a demonstration during the torch relay, I was surrounded by people waving Tibetan flags, yelling,“Shame on you, Gordon Brown!”2 While the protest was largely against the Chinese occupation of Tibet, the anger seemed also to be directed at the corporate spectacle that was the Olympic torch relay, made all the more insidious when combined with the heavy policing of the event, which included not only the presence of the Metropolitan Police but Chinese guards with paramilitary training.3 The parade included double-decker buses plastered with Coca-Cola logos, children waving flags bearing the Samsung logo, and a float carrying the Sugababes, a chart-topping bubblegum pop act. For one particularly satisfying moment, the booing and hissing became so loud that the Sugababes stopped dancing. Later on someone tried to put out the torch with a fire extinguisher. It was not only those attending the protest who questioned the value of the Olympics. At the time, the BBC published the results of a survey on the London 2012 games...

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