AS THE eyes of Bendigo marvel at the displays White Night unveils this weekend, a group of primary schools students will stare up at one building with immense satisfaction.
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Working with video artist Jim Coad, students from Bendigo South East College, Holy Rosary Primary School, Camp Hill Primary School and Kalianna School created Colouring in Competition.
Their work will be beamed onto the Bendigo Visitor Centre in Pall Mall on Saturday night.
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"One of the things I realised in the first workshop was that we actually have the best building in Bendigo," Coad said.
"It is one of most beautiful ones in the city and it's smack bang in middle of the White Night precinct and Bendigo of course.
"I kept saying to the kids 'you guys have the best building, it's outstanding'. That got them fired up and they produced excellent work."
About 120 students have created works that Coad is using in his projects.
"I would have like to have done more but the more entries you have, the longer takes to see own artwork," he said.
"This was such an opportunity to kind of say to the Bendigo community 'this is our building and this is the way we wanted to see it tonight'.
"That's what the magic is for projection mapping. It's about responding to architecture."
Coad tried to make his workshops as inclusive as possible with students creating works that would fit the facade of the Visitor Information Centre.
"Colouring in Competition had four rules - everyone's a winner, you don't have to stay in the lines, there is no rule three and it is okay to break the rules," Coad said.
"It ended up being a bit of free for all. My take on themes is they shouldn't be there to restrict you. They should be there to give you an opportunity to interpret what you create.
"(Students) could colour all the nooks and crannies of the building or draw a rainbow across it. Both are legitimate artworks."
Coad has been doing video based artwork for almost 20 years.
"I started off as pretty amateur filmmaker and got into projection art through being a VJ at parties," he said. "Then I got involved with local fringe festivals and projections in Castlemaine and it grew from there.
"I came into the world much more left brained and technically minded and used to think I would be scientist. But life intervenes and I have found myself doing art that is quite technical. It is a beautiful marriage.
"This idea is simple, it's effective. You do get range of quality of entries, some are just scribble and don't show a lot but it is still someone's expression."
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