School Fete - Firle C of E Primary

This is the season when school fetes are ten-a-penny, and the one at Firle Primary promises to offer all the bobbing-for-apples type stuff you’d usually expect. And much more. The school was allocated arts funding and used this to work with local and parent artists to generate ideas for the projects that will be on display at the fete. These include an impressive mosaic tree, a fabric portrait of the village, a flower and vegetable Mandala and, most remarkably, a vast ‘open air cathedral’. This work, which has been hung in the trees in the nature reserve next to the school, is a spectacular-looking construction inspired by the John Piper stained- glass window in the local church. It is made out of acrylic and other transparent materials, and designed to create an outdoor spiritual setting which draws the eye up to the heavens, taking in on the way the contour of Firle Beacon which is echoed in the design. The idea is to create the notion that the Church is not a building, but a concept.

And there’s more. The children were recorded talking about their ideas of god and these recordings will be played using state-of-the- art holosonic techniques. This technology allows sounds to be beamed down to be audible only in small spaces, like the visibilty of a spotlight. Unlike most school fetes, this one sounds absolutely intriguing.

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