Peace Camp 2012

Site and social platform for a UK wide art installation.

As part of the London 2012 Olympic Festival, event company Artichoke prepared a country-wide art installation across various coastal regions in the UK. Designed to be visited between dusk and dawn and inspired by the Olympic Truce, Peace Camp explored the poignancy of love poetry against the dramatic backdrop of the UK coastline.

A full screenshot of the 'Peace Camp 2012' home screen. — The home screen needed to celebrate the locations where the installation was touring while also giving updates on weather and any delays, promoting poetry and showing user input.

To prepare for the launch of Peace Camp and to provide an online voice during the event, we created a site and social platform where users could view a selection of poems used in the installation, but also record and upload their own reciting's to potentially be used as well.

A full screenshot of a poem documented on the 'Peace Camp 2012' website. — (Image 1) Poetry was a big component for the site and the installation. We wanted to celebrate, educate and let users contribute through each poem. (Image 2) Our intern at the time — Fred Scully — created some illustrations in keeping with the look and feel of the site. One of them was this map of the UK which we used to pin locations where the installation was touring.

An illustrated map view where users could find a 'Peace Camp 2012' location closest to them. — (Image 1) Poetry was a big component for the site and the installation. We wanted to celebrate, educate and let users contribute through each poem. (Image 2) Our intern at the time — Fred Scully — created some illustrations in keeping with the look and feel of the site. One of them was this map of the UK which we used to pin locations where the installation was touring.

The user generated content proved to be quite popular after the site launched, so much so that the site was accepted to be a part of The British Library's Digital Archive. This was the icing on the cake for us as it meant the site and everything visitors had made would be preserved long after the event had finished.

Users could upload their own poetry recitings as depicted in this screenshot. — One way users could contribute was to record or upload their own poetry recitings. This proved to be very successful and was a much-loved feature of the site. One such reciting from a 76 year old retired teacher will always stick with me.