New Carnival was successful in a funding bid to work with young people from the Hornpipe Guildhall Trust Portsmouth, during an event held in Ryde recently. Project Projection’ resulted in a digitally mapped projection onto St Thomas Church as part of the Merry and Bright event on 8th and 9th of December. Light Art Creatives in Bournemouth curated the artworks made by local young people and digitally mapped them onto the Church. Students from Y4 Dover Park Primary School and Y3 St Mary’s Catholic Primary all had a full day of activities exploring the creative possibilities of projection art. Network Ryde’s young people also took part in evening sessions. Project Projection included an arts award in which young people were able to find out about creative careers in the digital arts. They explored the history of ‘projection art’ which can be arguably traced back to flickering fire cave paintings as well as early shadow puppetry. Research followed practical activities, playing with an OHP projector and liquid light effects. The young people then looked at mapped projections and each contributed an artwork using local Ryde symbols which was then scanned and used in the digital animation. Becky, a young person from Network Ryde said, ‘I learned a lot about projections.’ The Symbols chosen reflect Ryde’s heritage, a bird from Appley Towers motto ‘Where there’s a will there’s a way’, a hippocampus sea monster from Ryde Towns crest, formally Ryde Town councils logo, which reads ‘A healthy beautiful place’, a fish from the lamppost water fountain at the top of town, a star from star street, a circle pattern reflecting the dome in the Royal Victoria Arcade, and a Wyvern Two legged dragon as spotted on Ryde pier’s ironwork and the logo for the Historic Ryde Society. In collaboration with Ventnor Exchanges ‘Brave Island’ platform, an opportunity to meet with Julian from Light Art creatives and New Carnival was hosted on Thursday 8th December. Participants were able to see how the projection equipment was set up on site and to get first-hand information about how to go about making and presenting a digitally mapped projection/ animation. 
The projections on St Thomas’s church on Friday 8th December could be spotted from far up the High Street. Many visited to have a closer look and the children that took part were able to see the final artwork. One child stood watching the entire animation to wait until their artwork came up, proudly telling their parents about it all. Unfortunately, due to the high winds on the Saturday, the projections were moved to The Methodist Church on Garfield Road Ryde. There was little time for detailed re- mapping, but Julian from Light Art Creations managed to make it work for the space, re-sizing the animation so people could still see the vibrant, colourful artworks the young people created. Julian Dorrell, director from Light art Creatives stated:
“I really loved the Merry and Bright event, project projection was a great idea and the event itself was very community orientated, I was pleased to be a part of it.”
