Ross Ashton designed artwork and projection system to illuminate the New York Public Library
USA - London UK based projection and lighting artist Ross Ashton designed artwork and a large format projection system to illuminate the front portals and entrance of the New York Public Library on 5th Avenue to highlight the opening of the Library's new exhibition, Three Faiths: Judaism, Christianity, Islam which runs until February 2011.

Ashton was commissioned to produce the work - which ran for a week - by the Coexist Foundation, a major sponsor of the exhibition, which hopes to inspire greater understanding about what it means to be Jewish, Christian and Muslim today.

It's the first time that Ashton's creative skills have been aired in New York City, and follows on from his recent very successful installations as the main artist for the 2010 Pittsburgh Festival of Light.

The 40m wide by 22m tall projections were beamed onto the building by three 7Kw PIGI projectors fitted with double rotating scrollers and films featuring pictures of the exhibits within, including original manuscripts and other precious artefacts.

The projectors were located on the balcony of the third floor corner suite in the boutique Hotel Andaz, located directly opposite across the road, which presented certain logistical challenges.

Ashton created the artwork for the PIGI scrollers himself with the materials supplied to him by the Library and curators of the exhibition.

Another more creative challenge was achieving the keystone correction needed to show the manuscripts absolutely straight on and very literal to preserve the integrity of the original documents.

The show was programmed by Andy Murrell using OnlyCue software and operated for the duration by Cory Cope of Pittsburgh based Fly Space.

(Jim Evans)


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