University News Last updated 24 June 2016
VIPs at Download Festival were in for an over-sized treat, as they came face to face with larger than life sculptures depicting some of the most iconic acts to have performed at the event over the past 14 years.
Eight foot tall caricatures of Alice Cooper, Marilyn Manson and the late Motörhead frontman, Lemmy, were among the performers specially created from polystyrene and fibreglass, and were on display in the backstage dressing room area.
Ozzy Osbourne, Kiss’ Gene Simmons, Slash and Keith Flint from The Prodigy completed the mammoth line-up on show from Friday 10 June until the festival closed on Sunday 12 June.
Each rock star was individually crafted by 12 second year students on Birmingham City University’s Design for Theatre, Performance and Events degree course.
Held annually at Donington Park in Leicestershire, Download is Britain's most popular summer rock and heavy metal festival, welcoming 110,000 music fans over its three days.
Following a brief set by University tutors and the festival organisers, the students used techniques learned on the course to carve and fibreglass the seven figures in to shape. The caricatures were then painted and latexed to withstand the elements as part of a process that took three weeks to design, create and install at Donington Park.
Hollie Wright, Module Leader for the project at Birmingham City University, said:
"We've developed a strong relationship over the last eight years between our Design for Theatre, Performance and Events course and the Download Festival. It is such a fantastic opportunity both for our students – producing sculptures for such a high profile live event – and for a local, yet mammoth, festival to be engaging with such a unique course.
"The nature of the work varies each year but the project is always both challenging and exciting."
Earlier this year, first year students on Birmingham City University’s Design for Theatre, Performance and Events course created a life-size installation featuring more than a dozen of Shakespeare’s most famous creations handcrafted from paper and cardboard.
Following an exhibition at the University, several of the characters – including Romeo and Juliet, King Lear and William Shakespeare himself – went on to be displayed in Stratford-upon-Avon and Liverpool as part of the celebrations marking 400 years since the Bard’s death.