A secret art project in the Olympic zone that the public could not visit

Dorian Lynskey

"I've always liked the Olympics," he says, "but when you've got Jeremy Hunt saying we've decided not to have an austerity Olympics, we mustn't hold back, when we're cutting the School Sports Initiative, that's an interesting conundrum. Legacy is a ghastly word. Politicians talk about the legacy of the games to east London and I think what they're concerned about is what their legacy will be. Does east London benefit from all this regeneration or is it negative to have this completely alien infrastructure dropped into it and its heritage stripped out? I was trying to ask a question: what sort of Olympics do we really want? Why does it have to be like this?"

In another room we find Legacy 3: a battery-powered television screening a DVD of the opening ceremony of the Athens Olympics. Franglen intended to contrast the triumphal spectacle with the fact that 21 of the 22 venues built for the games now lie empty. "All these buildings in Athens are derelict and guarded and you're in a derelict, guarded building,"

His original plan was to finish it by May and leave it as an installation for urban explorers. "I was thrilled by the thought of someone discovering it and going, what the hell is this? They'd take photographs and discuss it and it would grow, the same way the plants are growing." But the heightened security associated with the Queen's jubilee and the Olympics has slowed him down and kept most visitors away. Now, he says, this article, and a documentary filmed by a friend, will be Legacy's only exposure to the public. "It's been cut off at the knees," he says sadly.

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London 2012: The hidden Olympic legacy | Art and design | The Guardian