2009 - 2012: The Years Without SPART From 2009-2012 we declare a SPART Strike within the confines of Northern Ireland. During this time we will neither produce nor participate in any public sport/art events in the province. Why a SPART Strike? This SPART Strike is being called in direct response to the funding cuts to art and culture in Northern Ireland that have been brought about by the Westminster governments desire to host the 2012 London Olympic Games. We believe these funding cuts will have a retarding affect on Northern Irish culture. We are therefore unwilling to cooperate in the production of the Northern Irish sport/art cultural Olympiad in support of the 2012 Games. Instead we will spend our time mounting a clandestine campaign of protest against all hybrid sport/art cultural production within Northern Ireland. During the period of our SPART Strike we call upon all other individuals and organisations involved in art, sport and culture in Northern Ireland to join us in our refusal to produce sport/art hybrid works for the Northern Irish 2012 cultural Olympiad. SPART STRIKE Plan of Action During 2009-2012 (The Years Without SPART) we will endeavour to maintain the following key principles of SPART through our striking activities: 1. Turn protesting into a SPART leisure activity by giving as much consideration to the aesthetics of protest as we do to any other spartwork we might make. 2. Make protests more imaginative and exciting than the events of the Cultural Olympiad. 3. Create pockets of private clandestine cultural enojoyment in opposition to publicly enforced official cultural misery. Further Information The following sources provide more information regarding the affects of the 2012 Olympics on Northern Ireland: Ready Steady Gone by Justin McKeown. An article in the current issue of Circa Magazine giving an overview of the situation. Olympic Size Loss by Neil Irwin. This article gives an overview of finanial losses. £42 Million NI Cash Diverted to the Olympics BBC news article.