Grand Finale will light up The Square

Modern day heretics are being asked to step forward and put their name on a list as part of the Shift Time grand finale - a digital projection show in the Square, Shrewsbury.

Each of the 14 archways of the Old Market Hall will be hung with billowing sails and new-media artists, Andy McKeown and Sue Challis, will project words and images relating to people in history who held opinions which were not accepted by mainstream society.

Shrewsbury's own Charles Darwin takes pride of place with the whole of the text of On the Origin of the Species being projected at one end of the hall. Elaine Morgan's The Naked Darwinist, which was ridiculed for suggesting humans evolved at the waters' edge, will be shown at the other.

Others featured include 'the father of modern science' Galileo Galilei, chemist Linus Pauling and director of the Human Genome Project Dr Francis Collins.

Andy McKeown explained that they were celebrating heresies to mark the end of the Shift Time festival of ideas: “The Old Market Hall will be transformed into a shimmering spectacle marking the inspired, the stubborn, the genius, the ignored, ridiculed and attacked.” Hundreds of names of heretics from history will be projected and Andy added that visitors to the show were invited to add their own names to become part of the installation if they felt they had 'stuck their necks out' for a controversial idea.

The event takes place this Sunday, July 12, and follows a night of film and music entitled The Entangled Bank, upstairs at the Old Market Hall from 7.30pm.

Heresy will start at dusk and last for about an hour. It forms part of Andy and Sue's year-long project Lighting up Time, which is in celebration of Darwin and his ideas.

See more information about the Heresy event here