Film, Digital Media & Moving Image articles Cornwall, Uk - The Plymouth Mouth

Mouth Almighty

Lighting up Plymouth has fired up sixth formers to use their digital imaginations. Creative Partnerships backed a light projection marketing project that saw pupils from Plympton ’s Hele ’s School work to tight deadlines to produce public art. They worked with light artist Alex Rowbotham to cover Plymouth buildings with slogans and graphics publicising The Mouth:the website of Living History – a Creative Partnerships project encouraging the children of Plymouth to log the regeneration of their city via weblogs, digital photography and video.

January 27 saw the results of the team ’s work beamed up o­n Plymouth department store Dingles and The Guildhall, enthralling passers-by. Carl Fraser, 17, sixth former at Hele ’s School, said: “It ’s amazing to see it. It ’s come out so well. It’s something I’d never thought I ’d do. The most satisfying thing has been standing in Armada Way and hearing people say,‘Oh look at that ’ and me thinking, ‘I did that ’.” Fellow student light artist Joel Avery, 17, agreed. He said: “It would be good to use the things we’ve learnt in another project at school.” Art teacher Nick Norton liked the authentic feel of a tough marketing brief. “What has been good for them is the speed at which it’s developed. Schools things develop quite slowly.You don’t usually start something at the start of term and finish it two months later. It was a buzz to get the kids going and have a deadline to meet.” And he said that the project had really lit up the children ’s minds, as well as Plymouth ’s buildings.

“As a teacher, we are always encouraging them to push the boundaries. The difficulty is for the students to imagine that it ’s possible. This shows that if you set your mind to it, everything is possible. Perhaps this is a small start and some of them will go o­n to become future artist practitioners wanting to make projections. If it ignites that fuse of enthusiasm for the arts, that ’s great.”

Visit The Mouth at www.plymouthmouth.com