beyond the stigma: Q&A with little projector company

cohealth partnered with Little Projector Company to create a very special light projection installation featuring artwork and imagery created by people who have experienced drug addiction.  

Little Projector Company (external website) are Australia’s pre-eminent mobile projection specialists. Their work focuses on place-based storytelling with and by communities. 

We asked Little Projector Company General Manager, Lee Ramseyer Bache, about the collaborative approach they took to Beyond the Stigma – Laneway Light. 

How does the Beyond the Stigma Laneway Light project align with the values of Little Projector Company? 

We are all about creating moments in public space that allow for unheard voices to be heard. This project aligns really well with our values as a creative organisation that tells stories with community, about community, for community.  

Our principal mode of operation is on the street level. We use mobile projection such as projector bike to bring stories to people on the street as they are walking home from work or passing by a public space.   

It is these incidental moments outside of the rarefied space of the art gallery that allow for connection with new possibilities, new stories, new meanings, and the disbanding of old prejudices.  

Beyond the Stigma – Laneway Light aligns with our core purpose, as it is giving voice to people who experience stigma and provides an opportunity for the public to see and hear the stories and art behind the stigma.  

What makes digital art and light projection a good vehicle for storytelling? 

Light is the giver of all life. All life is connected to light as the life-giving force. We find wonder, illumination, focus, vision, perception, and all that we know, through light.  

Projection is the technique of emitting light from a light source through a lens so it hits a surface where not can be seen by the human eye. This is the reverse of the camera which captures light. Anything can become a production surface such as a pavement, a bridge, a building, the palm of someone’s hunt, or the T-shirt that you’re wearing.  

This means that projection can be seen and shared just about anywhere, whereas conventional art practices are often restricted to art galleries that may not be accessible for many people.  

Digital art is a good vehicle for storytelling because of its agile and receptive nature. We can easily collaborate to create a piece of digital art because there are lots of tools accessible to everyone that enable us to take a digital photo, edit together a digital video, or create a digital watercolour. 

 For a project like Beyond the Stigma – Laneway Light, the digital artworks are then shaped into a digital collage that can be edited and then projected very easily.  

You facilitated art workshops for cohealth clients and other people with an experience of drug dependence, including some people who are currently homeless. Tell us about these workshops, and how you make them accessible for people with a range of arts and technical abilities? 

We like to get a good idea of who will be participating in the workshop and then design activity stations, source material and processes that will be most suited to the participants and produce the most meaningful and productive experience for them as both people and creative practitioners.  

When designing workshops are primary aim is to ensure that the participants are the ‘doers’, so we think of each activity station as having an active verb. e.g. drawing, filming, editing, or painting.  

For this project we offered live light painting, green screen movement, time-lapse drawing, time-lapse modelling, audio recording of songs, music, poems or artist statements, as well as a live VJ’ing (video jockeying) station. All of these activities do not require any previous experience and they can all work based on the participant’s source material. Participants can get involved at every level and how they feel most comfortable: observe a process, offer up their work as source material, or lead the process and be the ‘doer’.