ABSTRACT
With landmark events such as the London 2012 Olympic Games, the official narrative was threaded through a combination of cultural programmes including invited artists and curators, open calls, and initiatives at the local level guided by the organizers of the Cultural Olympiad. There was a complex, multilayered approach to London 2012's Cultural Olympiad, and by coincidence it started at the same time that we held our first Sound Proof exhibition in 2008 and set the stage for a series of exhibitions that emerged from an organic process, a shared intent to make artistic contributions in response to the Stratford site. This chapter considers how artistic mapping might offer a means of addressing and narrating complex societal conditions and challenges. It focuses on independent cultural activity and its contributions towards narrating society's evolution through a wider filter of voices.
