People are being urged to vote for the Northamptonshire arts project FLOW which has won a place in the semi-finals of the National Lottery Awards 2012.
FLOW was a year-long visual arts programme which engaged 90,000 people through a series of artworks by leading British artists to explore and respond to the journey of water through the county’s rivers, canals, water towers and reservoirs, and part of the regional Igniting Ambition Festival and London 2012 Cultural Olympiad.
It is one of only 10 projects to make it through in the best art project category in the annual search to find the UK’s favourite Lottery-funded projects.
If it is voted into the final three, it will be featured on the National Lottery Awards 2012 television show to be broadcast live on BBC 1 later this year.
The winning project in each of the categories will receive national recognition at the star-studded event and £2,000 to spend on their artwork.
FLOW included Northampton Lighthouse, a laser installation which lit up the town’s’s National Lift Tower to signal 2012 hours to go before the official opening of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
Seven Spires, seven four-metre high red spires installed in the Oxford Canal outside the historic village of Braunston, the heart of the UK canal network, was also part of the project.
A feature entitled 180 degrees of Light saw Rothwell, Desborough and Corby water towers illuminated via laser beams to create a giant five-square mile triangle visible in the night sky.
Sywell Echo, Sywell Country Park’s Edwardian reservoir, was lit up with more than 100 LEDS tracing the original valley streams and parish border.
FLOW also included Interchange, a fortnight of artistic activity, which saw three artists based on a narrowboat travel from Cosgrove to Wadenhoe and back, with a unique performance in Blisworth Tunnel.
And Hero, a laser-light installation aligned with the canalised River Ise in the historic grounds of Boughton House, home of the Duke of Buccleuch, was another element.
Cabinet member for customer and community services Cllr Heather Smith said: “I am delighted that the FLOW programme has been shortlisted in these prestigious awards. Despite being a landlocked county, Northamptonshire’s waterways are a significant part of the county’s landscape and FLOW has been a fantastic way of highlighting these important locations.
“Please vote for FLOW in the National Lottery Awards 2012. It’s an opportunity to showcase Northamptonshire on national TV and show the rest of the country what this wonderful county has to offer.”
Voting for the semi-finals is open now and ends at midday on Sunday, July 22. To vote for FLOW call 0844 836 9675 or log on to {http://www.lotterygoodcauses.org.uk/awards/arts|www.lotterygoodcauses.org.uk/awards/arts|}.
The three projects in each category with the highest number of votes will go through to the final round of public voting later this summer.