Over 200,000 children’s self portraits to form a giant image of HM The Queen on the frontage of Buckingham Palace
Thousands of self portraits by children from across the UK will be projected on to the frontage of Buckingham Palace to form a montage image of HM The Queen, from 8.30 p.m. on Thursday 19th April 2012. The Face Britain projections will run from 8.30 pm – 11.30 pm for three nights until Saturday 21st April.
Face Britain is a unique project created by The Prince’s Foundation for Children & the Arts and brought to life by PhotoBox to provide a platform to celebrate the nation’s children and young people in the lead up to HM The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, The London Olympic and Paralympic Games. The Prince’s Foundation for Children & the Arts is an educational charity established by HRH The Prince of Wales to enable disadvantaged young people to access and engage with professional arts.
Face Britain invited children aged 4-16 years of age to produce their own self portraits enabling them to explore their creativity and to consider their own identity and place in history as the 2012 generation. Portraits at all levels of skill, and in any medium were acceptable, including drawing, textiles, 3D, painting, graphics, and photography.
The response has been amazing with over 200,000 portraits being uploaded on to the Face Britain online gallery, and 1,000 portraits per hour being uploaded over the final week (24th-31st March).
“Face Britain is about empowering children to explore their identity creatively; using the arts to communicate how they see themselves and giving us all a unique snapshot of our country’s future generation,” said Jeremy Newton, Chief Executive, The Prince’s Foundation for Children & the Arts.
As well as the projection on to Buckingham Palace the montage portrait of HM The Queen will be simultaneously screened for 24 hours on BBC Big Screens in 18 public locations across the UK. It will also be screened across JCDecaux’s network of digital advertising screens in train stations and shopping centres across the UK. The children’s individual portraits will also be shown across 200 JCDecaux screens by the end of 2012.
The projection has been created by artist Ross Ashton of The Projection Studio and is made possible by the generous support of 
Creative Technology. Ross’ previous projection work has been seen during HM The Queen’s Golden Jubilee, the Edinburgh Military Tattoo and the London 2008 New Year’s Eve celebrations.
The montage image will be attempting to break the Guinness World Records title for Most artists working on the same art installation – the current record is 28,267 artists who contributed to an installation in Israel in 2009. Following the projection of the montage onto Buckingham Palace, Guinness World Records officials will announce whether a new world record has been set.
This incredible one-off, record-breaking event can be witnessed outside Buckingham Palace, London SW1A 1AA from 19th-21st April, 8.30 pm-11.30 pm.
In addition, parents and guardians are able to purchase a unique piece of personalised Face Britain merchandise containing their child’s self portrait, through PhotoBox, with 20% of all sales being donated to support the work of The Prince’s Foundation for Children & the Arts.
The montage can also be seen across the UK over 24 hours from 8.30pm on 19th April on the following BBC Big Screens:
- Birmingham – Victoria Square
- Bradford – Centenary Square
- Bristol – Millennium Square
- Cardiff – The Hayes
- Coventry – Millennium Place
- Derby – The Market Place
- Edinburgh – Festival Square
- Leeds – Millennium Square
- Leicester – Humberstone Gate
- Liverpool – Clayton Square
- Manchester – Exchange Square
- Middlesbrough – Centre Square
- Norwich – Chapelfield Plain
- Plymouth – Armada Way
- Portsmouth – Guildhall Square
- Swindon – Wharf Green
- Waltham Forest, London – Walthamstow Town Square
- Woolwich – General Gordon Square
The other BBC Big Screens showing the projection but not for 24 hrs are:
- Dover – Market Square
- Swansea – Castle Square
The children’s self portraits will be stored in perpetuity for the nation by the British Library.
Celebrity Endorsement
As well as the children’s self portraits, many of Britain’s best-known faces have donated self portraits that will be auctioned on eBay from 3rd May 2012 in support of the work of The Prince’s Foundation for Children & the Arts. There are self portraits by Adele, Derren Brown, Fearne Cotton, Brian Eno, Richard E. Grant, Michael Morpurgo, Jamie Oliver, Sir Geoff Hurst, Sir Stirling Moss, Sir Cliff Richard, Alan Rickman and The Wanted amongst others.
Christie’s auction house will also host a gala dinner and auction of self portraits donated by many of Britain’s best loved artists: Quentin Blake, Angela de la Cruz, Tracey Emin, Ryan Gander, Rankin, and Bob & Roberta Smith. HRH The Prince of Wales has also donated a work.
eBay Auction Details:
Date: Live 3 May – 13 May 2012
www.ebay.co.uk/facebritain
Christie’s Auction Details:
Location: Christie’s London, King Street Saleroom, 8 King Street, St. James’s London SW1Y 6QT
Date: 9 May 2012
Time: 7:30pm
Web Address: www.christies.com
For ticket details, please contact rebecca.darke [at] childrenandarts.org.uk
Tel: +44 (0)20 3326 2233
For press information, images and interview requests please contact:
Toby Kidd at JB Pelham PR
Tel: +44 (0)20 8969 3959
Email: toby [at] jbpelhampr.com
Marcus Stanton at The Prince’s Foundation for Children & the Arts
Tel: +44 (0)7900 891287
Email: marcus_stanton@ [at] .com
About The Prince’s Foundation for Children & the Arts
The Prince’s Foundation for Children & the Arts is an educational charity established by HRH The Prince of Wales to enable disadvantaged young people to access and engage with professional arts.
Early engagement with the arts has a positive impact on young people, especially those hardest to reach through mainstream education: raising aspirations, increasing confidence, developing communication skills, and improving academic performance in class. Since 2006 Children & the Arts has worked with more than 100 arts organisations across the UK and introduced over 100,000 children to the arts, and has ambitious plans to build on this in the future. For further information visit: www.childrenandarts.org.uk
About PhotoBox
PhotoBox is the leading online photo service in the UK where it pioneered online printing, storing, sharing, community and publishing services for digital photos before extending its range to innovative products such as photo books, calendars, and greeting cards. Merging with leading French service Photoways in April 2006 to create Europe’s market leader, PhotoBox now boasts over 11million members and nearly 200million photo prints and has won more awards than any other online photo printing website with the latest including Which? Magazine’s Best Buy and Gartner’s CRM Excellence Award.
About Creative Technology
Delighted to be supporting Face Britain, Creative Technology (CT) has been combining innovative thinking with a passion for technology for over 25 years.
A leading international supplier of specialist Audio Visual equipment to the live events, broadcast and entertainment industries, CT’s bespoke events staging services bring together advice, support and equipment of the highest quality, providing everything from large screen displays to content delivery systems. In short, CT can provide all the elements required to translate creative ideas into technical reality.
With offices throughout Europe, USA, Middle East and Asia Pacific, CT can deliver a truly global touring and event solution with each office able to support the broad range of its equipment inventory and associated services. From the unique to the sensational, CT is well placed to support events of any size, of any genre, in any location.
About The Projection Studio
The Projection Studio have been creating large-scale projection events since 1994. We specialise in architectural projection art and creating stunning visuals on a monumental scale. The Projection Studio are able to offer these skills to a whole range of events. We have a worldwide reputation in projection events and artworks.
We are sensitive the needs of the commissioning body and work hard with them to make the event a success.
We are proud to be supporting Face Britain.
About Overthrow Digital
Overthrow Digital deliver sensational online experiences utilising creative thinking, relevant technology and targeted, well planned strategies to help build your brand. The company has extensive experience in designing and building beautiful, usable and effective websites created to inspire, inform and effectively communicate your message to your audience.
Overthrow Digital is proud to be supporting Face Britain and are very excited to have had the chance to use our skills to help inspire children to participate in such a great project and partake in creative activities. It has also been a great opportunities to showcase the company’s online experience and knowledge to advise and assist in developing an engaging website with useful and relevant technology and to help the project’s growth.
About JCDecaux
JCDecaux is the UK’s market-leading Outdoor advertising company playing a major part in transforming urban landscapes across the UK. As the premium broadcast supplier in Out-of-Home media; JCDecaux is the only pure-play Outdoor media owner worldwide, delivering high-quality and innovative advertising solutions.
JCDecaux is the number 1 supplier of advertising opportunities across Airports, Rail, Retail and Roadside. The UK’s number 1 in Digital Out-of-Home, JCDecaux’s expanding portfolio provides advertisers with enormous creative opportunities and greater flexibility, enabling advertising campaigns to be tailored and topical.
Guinness World Records Attempt
The existing record for ‘the most artists working on same art installation’ was achieved by 28,267 Taglit-Birthright Israel’s participants and supporters who contributed by sharing their fingerprints to create the artwork ‘Taglit’s Mark’, resembling the flag of Israel. The artwork was designed by Javier Gelbwaser (Israel) and displayed in Tel-Aviv, Israel, in 2009.
Source: JCDecaux
