Olympian-Artist Program: Residency
The program, launched as part of the Olympic Museum in 2018, selects Olympians and Paralympians, who are either professional or amateur artists. The aim is threefold:
enable them to produce and present new artwork,
share their experience through collaborative projects and educational workshops,
promote Olympic values in society.
To celebrate the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games, the Olympic Museum, in collaboration with the City of Paris, invited me to spend five days with members of the Caulaincourt Senior Center in November 2023.
Items donated for this project were sourced from a French recycling center as well as items from my own personal Olympic journey, with all gear reflecting sports in the Olympic program. Further ripping these items apart separates them from any team, country, or sport affiliation, leaving us only textures, typeface, and colors that are easily identifiable as sports-related. Assembling these pieces into the unifying image of the Olympic Rings captures how millions of individual stories come together at the pinnacle of athletic competition. Every step, every stroke, every leap, every kick, every drop of sweat, connects us to a global movement.
The scale of this project was made possible through community and teamwork by engaging senior citizens from the 18th arrondissement, Montmartre, a historic artists’ district. Oftentimes, sports focus on the vigor of youth (“Citius, Altius, Fortius” meaning bigger, faster, stronger) and yet this project intentionally honors the wisdom, experience, mentorship, and support embodied by these women.
This art quilt invites viewers to explore familiar, tactile details - fabrics that absorb the efforts of athletes at any level- while also standing back to appreciate the whole. It captures a moment in time made possible by the Olympic movement in preparation for the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris.
“When I hung up my oars I thought my Olympic journey was done, but there continues to be a thread that connects me through sport to a global community.”
“Much of the artistic process is similar to sport. It demands mental focus, goal-setting, and presence with the task at hand; requires mastery of the process and equipment gained through practice to achieve a creative flow; relies on communication and collaboration with others involved.”
The piece was commissioned by the Olympic Foundation for Culture and Heritage for Paris 2024. It will be part of a group show at an IOC venue alongside the works of the 2024 Olympian Artists, then go into the collection of the Olympic Museum in Lausanne, Switzerland.
About the Olympian Artist Program in Paris 2024
Artist Workshops in Paris ahead of the Olympic Games
