The Choose Love project began earlier this year as the theme for the festival’s annual "Projections for Peace" on 17 February. The collaborative community arts project saw local people of all ages, and professional artists from across the country, contribute 700 artworks for projection onto the Tide Mill, beside the River Deben.

Following the overwhelming success of the project, the festival arts co-ordinator, Alice Stallard, and festival creative director, Ben Osborne, set about finding a more permanent way of celebrating the contributed artworks.

“We had people of all backgrounds taking part, from school children to care home residents, the local Woodbridge Arts club and places like Chelsea Arts Club,” says Ben Osborne, who founded the festival 12 years ago. “We really wanted to find a way to celebrate these contributions more continuously after the projections on the mill had finished.”

“We work with local people of all ages for all our arts engagement programmes,” explains artist Alice Stallard, who leads the festival’s workshops and arts courses. “Our youngest contributors are under one-year-olds and the oldest contributor on this project was 103 years old.

“We had such great support in the community, from Suffolk Building Society, Grove Court, the local schools and Mediterranean Shipping Company - without whom we would not have been able to do this project. And the artworks made such a beautiful body of work, they were crying-out for a permanent exhibition space."

“It’s great to have such a visually exciting celebration of the town’s creativity permanently on display in a public space.”