Since its debut in September 2010, the three year African & African-Caribbean Design Diaspora programme organised by the London-based British European Design Group has brought together and exhibited artists and designers of African and African- Caribbean origin. The title and theme of 2012’s AACDD Bargehouse Festival was ‘Untold Gold’.

 

I was approached to submit a piece, which I planned as an illustrated poster celebrating our black-British athletes at the London 2012 Olympic Games.

Inspired by 80s cartoons, video games and comics, I wanted to create an image that had an almost science fiction, other-worldly quality to it. An image that depicted the athletes in a context usually reserved for saturday morning cartoons, or on the cover of a comic book. 

I created the concept of "GoLDN". A 12" x 18" 6-colour illustrated poster, celebrating gold winning athletes of ethnicity at the London 2012 games. The poster depicts Mo Farah, Nicola Adams, Jessica Ennis, Anthony Johnson, and Anish Kapoor's 'Orbit' sculpture. The image was never intended as a realistic, fine-art rendering, but instead as an expressive, exaggerated imagining. 

I wanted to capture the feeling I had as a child, looking up to world-famous athletes like Muhammad Ali, Pele and Michael Jordan, and seeing them as truly super-human. I did not want to single out the athletes due to their ethnicity, I wanted to create an inspiring, empowering image that young persons of colour could own and identify with.

In times of social strife our young people are often marginalised, however their victories are celebrated by everyone, and owned by no one group. This is my attempt to create an image that redresses that in some way.

Unfortunately I could not get this one screen printed in good time. The piece was therefore added to the Absent Art virtual exhibition, which allows visitors at the Bargehouse festival to view pieces on mobile devices, that could not be physically present at the exhibition.