She’s Going to Tokyo Celebrates 10 Female Olympians in the Wake of Postponement, Lockdown, & Dreams on Hold
Michael O’Donnell / Editor of the WNW Magazine
This past Friday, July 24th, may have resembled every other Friday over these last several months. But it was supposed to be the official kickoff to a global celebration of human skill, strength, and perseverance: The 2020 Summer Olympics. Back in late March, the Games, to be hosted in Tokyo, were postponed until 2021. For most of us, that means simply having to wait to tune in. But for the athletes competing, this delay presents a monumental challenge and gut punch. With many countries in various stages of lockdown, it’s become a creative challenge in resourcefulness for these athletes to stay physically and mentally game-ready.
In April and May, Butter, a creative studio led by WNW Member Cari Sekendur, conducted interviews with 10 female Olympians around the world who were planning to compete in the 2020 Tokyo summer games. Butter applied a unique approach to their conversations, honing in on what they call the “Seven Senses”: sight, smell, taste, touch, sound, mind, and body. Their goal was to understand and highlight the daily routines that these athletes ceremoniously commit to, and the minutia that we often overlook in celebrating stories of athletic perseverance.
The resulting project is a series of graphics that reflect these conversations and capture this truly unparalleled moment in time. Butter studio hopes that this project will hold a torch to “how the strongest, most disciplined women among us are living right now so that perhaps the rest of us can learn some lessons from them.”
Butter will be posting these visual stories from July 24th - August 9th, the scheduled dates of the Tokyo 2020 summer Olympics.
