» Decathlon

In 2012 Talking Birds will be 20 years old. Perhaps less widely known, 2012 is also London's Olympic year and so, to celebrate both those things, we are embarking on a year long project called Decathlon - ten artworks, each inspired by the decathlon's ten sporting disciplines. It is designed to involve a wide range of people as participants and audience...without them having to don shorts or get out of breath.

Our Decathlon features interpretations of all ten of the traditionally-recognised decathlon events ranging from the 100m Sprint (an open competition for world-record-breaking 9.58 second artworks, which will screened at and voted upon at the Fierce Festival in Birmingham in March, then archived online) to the Discus (a newly-commissioned choral round performed by orchestra and community choir to mark the arrival of the Olympic torch in Coventry on July 1st) to the 110m hurdles (which invites young children and old people to engage in a discussion about the hurdles faced in life, resulting in an exhibition of large scale photographic portraits at The Herbert Art Gallery in May).

Talking Birds has a noble tradition of celebrating anniversaries in style. Long-in-the-tooth visitors may remember that in 2002 we celebrated our 10th anniversary with similar hyperbolic flair, producing ten new artworks under the banner of the Helloland project. If you remember that, you may even stil have a desk calendar or channel-hopping prize fly...

So back to 2012: some of the ten artworks in the Decathlon require input from other artists, and so we will be issuing a series of calls for contributions over the next few months. Fancy joining in? You can find the first two calls for contributions here.