Date: July 4 - September 9
Time: 9AM - 10PM
Venue: QMA Gallery (Building 10)



From the 27th July to the 12th of August 2012 the Games of the XXX Olympiad will take place in London, where for several weeks hundreds of cameras will be focused on athletes and competitions with images beamed out to an audience of billions.

The modern Olympics Games and motion pictures share a common birth date of 1896. From their humble beginnings the Olympics, motion pictures and media in general have developed together in sophistication and now reach a truly global audience. At first, the relationship between film-making and the Olympic Games was slow to grow. It was not until the advent of television that the synergy between the Games and the Media grew into the worldwide phenomena it is today.

The exhibition showcases each individual Olympic Games with a short story of the sports event and the relationship of the available media technology on the Games. 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 is the first time an exhibition has been co-hosted by two departments at Qatar Museums Authority, the Qatar Olympic & Sports Museum and the Media Collections Department. The exhibition collection is sourced from important historical artefacts and visual material from both departments. Part of the exhibition is an extensive educational program including a children’s lounge, video game competition, regular guided tours, gallery lectures as well as a summer holiday program.

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