Art & Heritage
Art & Heritage
A selection of our projects, past & recent
The Miller's Tale
This projection and sound installation was created for the National Trust’s water mill at Lode, close to Anglesey Abbey in Cambridgeshire. The piece was created by Ross Ashton & Karen Monid. The projection tells the story of the production of flour, from planting the wheat through to reaping and grinding the grain. The final section features a 3D model of the interior of the mill, being operated by the millers who staff the mill in real life.
To put the millers into the piece, we carried out a green screen shoot of the actual millers of today, who work at the mill, and composited them into the scene.
The audio design provided animation focussed audio at the mill itself and also incorporated the path approaching the mill, creating a wider immersive soundscape over 100m, so the visitors’ experience could begin at a distance.
“A delightful winter experience with really amazing projections on the front of the house of illustrations from the books collection and the story of growing wheat projected on the side of the mill, where it seemed as though the mill opened to reveal the people and machines inside. We loved it.” – TripAdvisor
“We recently visited the Christmas lights display in the abbey grounds. The nature theme was beautifully recreated and the projected display at the mill was particularly of interest to our 6 and 8-year-old grandsons” – TripAdvisor
Triquetra
Commissioned by the Illuminating York Festival, ‘Triquetra’ tells the history of the Jelling dynasty of Danish Viking Kings of the 10th & 11th century. They are Harald Bluetooth, Sweyn Forkbeard & Cnut The Great. Cnut became one of England’s most famous kings, whilst also being king of Denmark and Norway, ruling over The North Sea Empire.
We visited York and specifically chose the site of Clifford’s Tower as the most apt and compelling for the story we wanted to tell.
The entire script was created from contemporary documents, so that we could reflect the words and concerns of people of the time. This meant researching and translating documents in Old Norse, Old English and Latin. To be able to have the voices speak in their original languages, we recorded the voices of academics from York, Cambridge, Aberystwyth, Warwick & Sheffield.
Images were sourced from original carvings and illustrations from a wide range of origins.
Music was created using Viking reproduction instruments including bone flutes, wooden panpipes and an Anglo-Saxon lyre.
“There has been a fantastic response to the artistic work…all in all it has been a great success.” – Sonja Crisp, City of York Council (Tourism)
“Triquetra was the largest and most spectacular of the digital artworks that graced York for the four day 2013 Festival. The acclaimed work – which received massive coverage in the local and national press and an incredible public response – was beamed onto Clifford’s Tower. Combined with Monid’s vibrant soundtrack, this was a truly groundbreaking work for the city and the festival.” – LSI Online
“…the clarity and brightness of the projection onto the grass was quite remarkable and truly transformed this iconic site.” – Paul Wigfield, QED Productions
The Mills Are Alive
A project of huge breadth and ambition, this enormous projection and sound installations told the human story of Lister’s Mill in Bradford, Yorkshire. The project transformed the unique 250ft tall chimney structure into a canvas that spoke of the harsh working conditions of the 19th century, the strikes that changed the national political landscape, the social clubs, top secret projects of World War II, the new post-war workers moving into Bradford and much more.
Commissioned by Brickbox as part of the successful Bradford 2025 City of Culture Bid.
The audio, created by Karen Monid, included many local community volunteers giving voice to the accounts of the earlier workers, along with specially made location recordings and featuring the music of local musicians and songwriters, including the work of popular Bradford based group, Mookie & the Bab.
Images for the projection were drawn from extensive archive research that included libraries and private collections across the city.
“Credit where credit is due. I thought it was a spectacular display and something we should see more of, well done Bradford Council!” – Facebook
“I really enjoyed it. Really well done. Beautiful to watch. And I particularly liked that there was a lot of history involved and to see our own history.” – Vox Pop
“The technology’s amazing. The image and sound is beautiful, and what a rich history of this building here that I didn’t even know about, brought to life in this beautiful way. I absolutely loved it.” – Vox Pop
“I thought that what they did with the projectors was really amazing and it was great to see the history of not just the mills, but of Bradford. It covered cultural things I wasn’t even expecting. I thought it was really beautiful.” – Vox Pop
“I think it’s lovely. It’s lovely to see Listers Mill like this, it’s usually just quiet. It’s a building that you have known all your life living in Bradford, so to see it like this, it’s really nice. I think it’s important that we do things like this. It’s important to highlight the good aspects of Bradford.” – Vox Pop
Northern Lights
We were commissioned by the York Minster Fund to create an artwork for the finale of the Northern Lights fund raising dinner, held inside York Minster in 2018. The resulting sound and immersive projection mapping installation Northern Lights was then opened to the public for two nights. The 3D projection covered the entire ceiling of the nave, and the west wall and doors of the Minster which includes the iconic Heart of Yorkshire window. The Minster asked us to use the world famous medieval stained glass as our inspiration.
The surround audio system was designed for especially for this event and allowed the voices, music and sound effects to be routed to specific locations within the nave. For Northern Lights, we were delighted to be able to work with a range of collaborators. The Centre for Medieval Studies at the University of York performed the texts in their original languages and these were included in the soundtrack. The Ordered Universe Project translated the original Latin texts and the York Glaziers’ Trust provided expertise on the history and design of medieval stained glass.
The sound piece included a wide range of Icelandic, English and Italian medieval texts. Music was included from the Minster choir’s own repertoire, combining rich soundscapes with works as diverse as Clucas’ ‘A Prayer Of Alcuin Of York’ and the ‘Gloria’ from the Missa Octavi Toni by Orlande de Lassus.
“This may be the most beautiful thing I’ve seen in my life” – Twitter
“It was a triumph! Your show was absolutely brilliant! And every single person I have talked to who saw it was raving about it. Thank you so much!” – Diana Terry, The York Minster Fund
Out of the Aire
Out of the Aire, celebrated the people of Leeds and the city’s history as a centre of innovation, engineering and the arts. We decided to include the local community in the creation of the piece. It was commissioned by Leeds Light Night & was projected onto Leeds Civic Centre in October 2017 and again in 2024.
The sources for the script and the original images were drawn from 10 local archives including Leeds Museums & Galleries, Leeds West Indian Carnival and the Yorkshire Film Archive.
The soundtrack featured the work of 6 local bands and musicians, including the legendary Lord Silky. All music artists were curated and edited by Karen Monid to combine with voices and sound effects for a piece to fuse the history with a distinct sound and modern twists. The voices heard in the soundtrack came from 16 local volunteers of all ages who were all recorded in Leeds over the course of a day.
“It celebrated Leeds as a centre of innovation and engineering first but what really got me was seeing the people and names who have made our city proud… Leeds has so much to be proud of.” Geha Pandey, Yorkshire Evening Post
“The projection on the Civic Hall was not only mesmerising but also put together to celebrate the history of Leeds and allowed everyone watching to dive into its past. From speeches on suffragettes to circuses, there really was something for everyone to tune into, providing a new and enticing form of educating the many watching” – Daisy Short, Leeds Living
Line
Originally created for the Cheriton Festival, this exterior work is a study of a single, pulsing movement of lines. A simple, repetitive pattern of straight lines in movement is altered and combined to create a constantly evolving series of geometric shapes.
Like a piece of music, this visual ‘theme’ is explored through a series of variations that retains the original line movement and integrates that with the architecture of the building.
The resulting patterns create a work that forms an intriguing view of projection and metamorphosis.
coming soon…
coming soon…
The World Machine
CROWN OF LIGHT was commissioned as the centrepiece of the ‘Lumiere Festival’ in 2009 and was brought back by popular demand for 2011 and 2013. The artwork took as its inspiration the Lindisfarne Gospels and their relationship to Durham Cathedral.
In 2015, we produced another spectacular work THE WORLD MACHINE, which attracted upwards of 200,000 people to the city over four nights. THE WORLD MACHINE
was inspired by research carried out by The Ordered Universe Project into the scientific writings of Bishop Robert Grosseteste and his insights into cosmology and the place of humanity in the universe. This was juxtaposed against a modern view of cosmology as exemplified by the cutting-edge work of Prof. Carlos Frenk and the Durham Centre for Computational Cosmology.
Both artworks are firmly rooted in the architecture and history of the cathedral and the city. Many of images used were drawn from and inspired by architecture of the cathedral itself.
The ability to bring details of the cathedral art and architecture into our artwork creation allows the public to see and appreciate details of the design of these buildings that may not normally be seen.
We worked in deep collaboration with the academics and students at Durham University and for they had input into the creative process.
The Ordered Universe are carrying out new translations of the work of Robert Grosseteste. Although based in Durham the group is drawn from many academic institutions across the globe including the universities of Oxford, Berkeley, Chicago & Beirut.
Music Isobel Waller Bridge.
Sound Design Jon del Nero.
“I have found the Projection Studio both a joy to work with, and an enormously productive partner for public education. The capacity to work with world-class sound and light shows, is a fantastic opportunity to showcase the best of UK academic work.”
Giles Gasper
Professor of High Medieval History
Durham University
Children and The Arts
London, UK based The Projection Studio, headed by visual artist Ross Ashton, designed and created the record-breaking video artwork featuring 32 animated mosaic portraits of HM The Queen that is being projected onto Buckingham Palace this week. The ‘Face Britain’ project was instigated by The Prince’s Foundation for Children & the Arts and brought to life by PhotoBox. It has enabled over 200,000 children to make their faces famous on the front of one of London’s most iconic landmarks. It is also the first time that video projections have ever been used on the front of the Palace.
The video montage of the 32 portraits is attempting to break the Guinness World Records Title for the Largest Collaborative Artwork, that is the most artists working on the same art installation. The previous record stands at 28,267 artists. Children aged 4 – 16 were invited to produce their own self-portraits by Face Britain encompassing all levels of skill and in any medium, including drawing, photography, textiles, painting and graphics. These were uploaded to PhotoBox. Ashton came up with the idea of animated mosaics. He worked with Moscow-based Boris Glazer to create a bespoke version of his Mazaika software to encode all the photos and then compose the 32 images of The Queen from the 200,000 or so self-portraits that were submitted
Ashton says, “I am hugely proud and absolutely delighted to be involved in this collaboration, and naturally it’s a great honour to work directly for the Prince’s Charities. There have been plenty of creative and technical challenges and it’s very satisfying to get the opportunity of pushing the boundaries and breaking new ground”. In addition to the Buckingham Palace projections, the 32 portraits are being simultaneously shown for 24 hours on BBC Big Screens in 18 public locations nationwide. Face Britain celebrates the UK’s children and young people in the run up to HM The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee and the London Olympic and Paralympic Games.
