CREATIVE young Coventrians have the chance to create a unique piece of art celebrating an unsung city hero- and they will be getting a helping hand from Gollum himself.
Academy-award-winning Lord of the Rings star Andy Serkis is helping with the Gallery of Living History Schools Competition.
The contest will give children the chance to create a visual soundscape installation telling the story of their chosen hero or heroine.
The soundscapes will make use of augmented reality, with the public able to use their phones or other devices to open up elements such as video, text or 3D models and will be asked to help with the voting.
To win this year’s competition schools are being asked to consider why their chosen person should be memorialised and to create strong statements to reinforce their choice.
The shortlisted entries will be put online, and the public will then have between April 22 and May 3 to vote for their favourite.
An expert judging panel will then use the public vote to decide the overall winner.
This is the second year the school competition has been run, with children from Sidney Stringer Academy designing the winning entry of a Tree of Peace statue in 2022.
The tree is installed on a plinth at Starley Gardens in Coventry city centre.
The winning entry in this year’s competition will see their sound-based entry installed on screens in the plinth on which the tree statue sits.
Andy Serkis said: “Our previous school competition attracted some amazing entries and gave young people the chance to really think deeply about how and why people and events are memorialised.
“This year the entrants will get the opportunity to use technology such as augmented reality to help bring their visual soundscapes to life and I’m really looking forward to seeing the creative ideas they come up with to celebrate their local heroes.”
Visit www.galleryoflivinghistory.com/schools-competition for more information.
