QMA to mark the end of the “Olympics through Media” exhibition

The Qatar Olympic & Sports Museum and the QMA Media Collections Department will mark the closing of the Olympics through Media exhibition with an event on 9 September 2012.

Special guests of the event will be Qatari Bronze medalists Nasser Al Attiyah and Mutaz Essa Barshim, as well as Nada Waffa and Bahya Mansour Al-Hamad, members of the Qatar Olympic Team 2012, who will speak about their experience at the London 2012 Olympic Games.

The exhibition, which opened on 4 July 2012 at QMA Gallery, Building 10, in Katara, showcases heroes of the Summer Olympic Games from the first Olympics in 1896. For the first time a series of film segments are being shown on 29 screens and cover a story for every Olympic Games up to this year’s Games in London. Some of this previous unseen footage is being used to show the relationship and development of media from the early days of motion pictures and photography. These early milestones in technological development have contributed significantly to the growth of this worldwide phenomenon.

The 1936 Olympics in Berlin, for example, were pivotal in the relationship between the media and sports. Groundbreaking cinematographic techniques were used to capture the athletes from a range of different perspectives using multiple movie cameras and, for the first time, limited live television broadcasts were tried. The 1948 Olympics in London were the first Games to be covered by a public TV service. The sale of exclusive TV rights has become a source of growing income for the International Olympic Committee since 1960. The advent of live radio and television broadcasting has continually increased the popularity of the Olympic Games.

The “Olympics through Media” exhibition, curated by the Qatar Olympic & Sports Museum and the QMA Media Collections department, displays important historical artifacts and visual materials sourced from the collections of both museum departments.

Director of the Qatar Olympic & Sports Museum, Dr. Christian Wacker said: “The closing celebration of the ‘Olympics through Media’ exhibition will be a great opportunity for those who haven’t had a chance to see the exhibition. We would also like to welcome back the volunteers and community members who have helped make the exhibition and its programmes a success.”

Acting Director of the QMA Media Collections Department, Nicholas Couts is also quoted as saying that “the closing event will be a last opportunity to see internationally important and unique film history artefacts from QMA’s Media collection that may not be on public display for a long time”. He adds “these rare surviving objects of film history are so scarce that even by touring all the film museums of Europe and the USA you will not find a comparable collection in one place”.

Part of the exhibition was an extensive educational program including a children’s lounge, a video game competition, regular guided tours, gallery lectures as well as a summer holiday program. The cultural hub gave embassies and sport federations a platform to present themselves and showcase their culture to the community in Qatar.

Advertisement