World Record
Thousands of people from across the West Midlands are joint-world record holders, after taking part in an ambitious arts project to create the largest photo mosaic in the world.
Between January and June The Big Picture received over 110,000 photos submitted from people across the region, and uploaded to this site.
The pictures we used to create a huge, record-breaking photo mosaic, the size of three tennis courts, unveiled at Birmingham’s Thinktank at Millennium Point on Saturday 23 August. We’ve collected reactions, photos and video from the day.
Eight photos were shortlisted to become the final image of The Big Picture. The eight photos were selected for their unique boldness, fascinating stories, and their suitability to be reproduced into the huge scale work of art. Lucy Moore’s image of her granddad was the winning photo.
The mosaic was put together by volunteers around the West Midlands region. You can read some blog posts about the process.
You can explore the mosaic here.
The largest photo mosaic record was last set when 105,196 individual photos of babies composed a mosaic which measured 660.525 m² (7109.8 ft²) in Shanghai, China, on 27 April 2008, achieved by P&G Pampers.
Helen Marshall
Artist Helen Marshall will be responsible for overseeing the creative direction and physical construction of the final mosaic, and was involved in the shortlisting process. You can see more of Helen’s work on her website. Helen worked with photo mosaic specialists PollyTiles to realise the enormous image made up of photographs submitted by the public.
Helen Marshall is a British artist. Her work is rooted in photography and lens-based media. She also works with digital media. The work is technically ambitious and often deals with existing as well as constructed social archives. She has worked on similar commissions with the The Photographers’ Gallery, the BBC and The Royal British Legion.
PollyTiles make mosaics from thousands of images on a daily basis and have a deep experience of moulding a computer-generated image into art. They are experts in the technical and design aspects of computer-generated visual art, specializing in unique photo mosaics.
