We were approached by Birmingham Hippodrome to create some 3D street art as part of the Birmingham Weekender Festival which takes place on August bank holiday. The festival is a major, free outdoor festival which sees the city’s streets, squares and shopping district burst into colourful life.
All communities are invited to join processions, follow art trails, and immerse themselves in interactive environments and play-spaces; and be wowed by surprise performances from local, national, and international artists along a continuous animated route across key city centre sites.
The works, which played with perspective, were spread across a variety of locations and included:
- A 23m Anamorphic spaceship bursting through the ground in the train station which was made up of 415 individual stickers
- A 7m vortex made of 200 vinyl pieces
- A pair of wings, one pair being wheelchair accessible. Creating the perfect photo opportunity for people to pose in front of
- And a series of anamorphic shapes for people to play with
We used Terry at Screenprint and Display to print the vinyl, who turned out to be a vital support throughout the project. He answered countless questions about the install plus he cut and labelled all of the individual pieces for us. By his own admission, he was laid awake at night worrying about how the project would come off, it being our first time using this material for a major install.
He was such a source of reassurance throughout the project that the team took on the name ‘Terry’s Angels’ for the install. A trip to the karaoke bar had to be postponed when the install ended up running over schedule and the team had to work all through the night! After countless late night trips to the vending machine, Jocasta, Claire, Emma and ‘6 cans of diet coke Dave’ finally finished the install at around 5:30 AM with just 20 minutes to spare before the first train pulled in!!
Terry, on seeing how the install went was extremely pleased, and that was reward enough for us.
