I answered a call to an opportunity from the Fuse Medway Festival for artist’s professional development. ‘Would you like to build one of 17 puppets?’ was the call and ‘yes’ was my answer. In the future I hope to bring to life elements of my static work and felt that puppet making is a step in the right direction. The puppet building residency with the Imagination Our Nation team took place in London and by the end of the residency 17 champions had been created, they live across the UK.
Sparky is 3’ tall and has become Medway’s Champion of health and fitness. His debut appearance was last year at the Fuse Festival, he went onto visit Medway residents throughout 2009. This year I had the role of Creative Producer, taking Sparky, with the Sparky team, into Medway primary and juniors schools sharing his story so far and asking pupils to help Sparky create a performance relay in Chatham High Street as part of the Medway Fuse Festival.

Sparky requires a lot of tlc and has many friends to help him operate, I am part of the team that looks after him. We build his big brother in October, when the ION team will descend on Slip 6 at Chatham Dockyard to help the creation of 5 new towering champions.

More information about Sparky and the Imagination Our Nation Project

http://www.imaginationournation.co.uk/

http://www.imaginationournation.co.uk/champions/page/sparky_medway/

This link goes direct to Sparky’s ION page

http://www.facebook.com/sparkychampion

The most information on facebook about his daily life

Tags: art project, community arts, cultural olympiad