Making their mark…
Teenagers across the UK team up with an east London artist to create paintings for London 2012
Coca-Cola Great Britain has commissioned artist Luke Embden to work on an exciting art project with teenagers up and down the country. Over the course of several months, seven paintings will be created in seven different cities – and the final artwork will go on display at the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
Luke has been travelling to regional sports festivals across the UK to encourage teenagers to get involved with the artwork and make their mark as part of London 2012. The teens all take part in local sports projects through Coca-Cola Great Britain's charity partner StreetGames, who help make sport more accessible to young people in disadvantaged communities.
The seven values:
Each canvas captures one of the seven Olympic or Paralympic values:
- Respect, Excellence and Friendship - for the Olympic Games
- Courage, Determination, Inspiration and Equality - representing the Paralympic Games.
Speaking at the Glasgow festival, where StreetGames teens worked on the 'Respect' canvas, Luke said: "It's great to come to Glasgow and see the young people here engaging in this project around the Olympic and Paralympics values. To many of these young people sport is the centre of their lives; it’s helped them to stay off the streets and keep out of trouble and in some cases even helped them to get a job through volunteering and coaching too. For them, sport is a real life changer and the Olympic and Paralympic values still mean something on many levels."
John McLean from Coca-Cola in Scotland said: "The London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games are the most exciting opportunities we have as a Worldwide Partner to engage young people and help to build a legacy of increased grassroots sports participation. "We commissioned the Olympic and Paralympic Values artwork to encourage our young people to make their mark for the London 2012 Games and inspire them into sport by exploring what the Olympic and Paralympic values mean to them."
Going to the Games...
Follow the stories of three young StreetGames coaches who have been hired by Coca-Cola to work at the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games in our three-part video series.
