The Venice Biennale takes place from 22 May – 21 November.
Dr Geoffery Z. Kohe, Sport Management and Policy Lecturer in the University’s School of Sports and Exercise Science is contributing to a landmark exhibit at the prestigious Venice Biennale Festival (22 May – 21 November).
Dr Kohe’s contribution is part of an Austrian-led international collaboration as part of the Biennale’s primary focus on ‘How will we live together?’. The collaboration, commissioned by the Austrian Federal Ministry for Arts, Culture, and the Civil Service and Sport, is curated by leading national urban design, civic infrastructure and cultural space architects and sport museum experts.
The exhibition, entitled ‘Platform Austria’, includes a dedicated sport culture space, showcasing critical intersections between architecture, urban living, social engagement, digital connection, and cultural dialogue. The sport section, ‘Ball-Wall’, will include a collage of critical commentaries and images from sport scholars contained within constructions imitating the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games and FIFA 2022 World Cup Stadia.
Dr Kohe’s contribution ‘New architectures for/of Olympic and sport education: Restructuring sport cultural dialogues and productions beyond Tokyo 2020’, draws upon his ongoing research on Olympic education and critical museum studies to highlight the use of sport mega-events like the Olympic Games to drive global sport and education agendas.
Segments of his research will be projected onto the Ball-Wall and merged with commentaries from other international academics. The result will be a diverse cross-cultural narrative composed of the vital perspectives on sport culture, alongside a personal collection of sporting photographs that form a thought-provoking collage.
Focusing on Tokyo 2020’s Yoi, Don! (Ready, Go!) Olympic education initiative, Dr Kohe’s piece highlights how ventures between Olympic authorities, universities, state authorities and sponsors, largely unchecked, use education, youth and sport spaces to push ideological and commercial goals.
Dr Kohe said: ‘This is a unique opportunity to engage wider public audiences in critical discussion and reflections not only about sport culture and its educative value, but to prompt reflection on sports’ wider roles and consequences in the future of urban life and communities. New blueprints may be drafted that actively encourage new dialogues about what sport has been, can be, and could be for’.
Dr Geoffery Z. Kohe is Lecturer in Sport Management & Policy at the University of Kent’s School of Sport and Exercise Sciences. Working with Olympic and professional sport bodies, his recent work on the Olympic movement and the professional sport industry has examined sport museums and heritage production, sport mega-event legacies, organisational cultures, and sport workers’ experiences.