To help ignite ambition and celebrate the hosting of the Olympic and Paralympic Games, Culture East Midlands will lead on driving a series of partnerships which create each year a different showcase festival, before culminating in 2012 in a unique, region-wide, festival of cultural events provisionally entitled The East Midlands Great Exhibition. It will be held over a five month period, May-September 2012, incorporating arts and media, heritage, science, sports and wellbeing activities. The region will welcome the world to this Great Exhibition both through local involvement and through active promotion to visitors, domestic and overseas.

 

The Great Exhibition will be preceded by four annual showcases, in each of the summers of 2008-2011, each of which will be bigger in duration, in geographical spread and in scale of operation; each building expertise, capacity, participation and profile for the big celebration in 2012 and for sustaining the activity in the years beyond.

 

Legacies will be embedded through the hosting of a World Youth Biennale in the region in 2013 and through the organizing of a further regional Great Exhibition every three years.

 

The four annual showcases, followed by the Great Exhibition, will provide significant opportunities for local participation and community confidence, skills development, international understanding, increased health/well-being, cultural engagement, showcasing of talent, and for unlocking new facilities and potential. There will be a particular focus on an evolving number of Live Sites/Virtual Networks (BBC Big Screens) being envisaged for urban centres and on the establishment of a number of arts and environment and heritage and tourism trails which make connections between city, countryside and coastline.

 

An initial allocation of £1.61 million has been offered by the Legacy Trust UK for the five year programme, spanning the five years 2008-2012. An additional £2 million is being sought from public and private sector partners.

 

 

The first showcase will be in Derby to mark the Beijing Handover and the launch of the Cultural Olympiad, with the Derby Feste. Derby is currently the only city in the region with a live site (BBC/London 2012 outdoor screen) and Quad, the city’s new visual arts and media centre will be opening its new building during the Derby Feste.

 

 

In 2009 a second showcase will be developed in Leicester, which has won its bid to host the 2009 UK Special Olympics and provides a unique opportunity to accelerate activity across the region, raise awareness of disability arts and sports and to promote understanding of diversity. The showcase will last two weeks and will conclude with the Leicester Caribbean Carnival parade and a high quality programme delivered principally within the Olympic Village (Walkers Stadium) and in the city centre.

 

 

In 2010 the third showcase programme will be created across the three cities and counties of Derbyshire, Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire. It will build on the legacy of the Three Cities Create and Connect programme of 2004-2007. The showcase programme will focus on international understanding of the cultures of India, China and the African diaspora, which have particular resonances for the communities of our region, using the inspiration of the staging of three world events happening that year: the Commonwealth Games in Delhi, the football World Cup in South Africa and the Shanghai Expo.

 

 

In 2011 will focus on building capacity, partnership and participation within Northamptonshire and Lincolnshire, including working with the Green Lungs partnership to create participatory activities in the region’s forests and woodlands. A number of trails will be devised which give added value through animating spaces and promoting healthy lifestyles, which connect rural and coastal areas with the major towns and cities.

 

 

Finally, in 2012, the whole region will come together to create a unique celebration, lasting the five months of May through to September 2012, showcasing new work that has been commissioned and offering a platform for other Tier 2 Cultural Olympiad projects, such as showcasing the region’s Artists Take the Lead commission, the films and videos made under the Film and Video Nation umbrella and other carnival festival commissions. The Great Exhibition would focus on the theme of Connecting Communities: City, Country and Coast.