COUNCIL chiefs are to fork out more than £7,500 on creating a cartoon about lives of typical Preston folk.

Two artists, Simon Grennan and Christopher Sperandio are to be employed by the authority as part of the Harris Project Exhibition.

Museum bosses want to spend £7,850 on the duo, who will make a digital video animation, entitled Preston. It will be based on interviews with Prestonians who are believed to be typical to the town and have fascinating stories to tell.

The artists - one of who is being flown in from New York, at a cost of £500 taxpayers - will then take the stories to use in the video, which will be about 15 minutes long and give an insight into the lives of the people who use the Harris building.

Each artist will pick up £1,250 from the work, which will be displayed in the Harris Museum from September as part of an exhibition designed to 'capture the essence' of the town's museum/art gallery/library. Then more than £2,500 will be spent making, printing and shrink-wrapping 1,000 copies of the video, which will be given to people involved in the making of the video, and those associated with the Harris Museum.

Members of the leisure services committee are to be asked to give the director of leisure services permission to enter contractual talks with the two artists at a meeting due to be held today (Thursday).

A council spokesman said: "The artists did a similar project in Bradford, looking into the lives of people living there.

"Simon and Christopher then created a comic book out of the stories they were told. This project takes the concept one step further and creates a moving image out of it.

"It is one of a number of projects being created under the banner of the Harris Project exhibition."

The council has come under fire for recent displays. Plans for an exhibit called Puddle - a man-made puddle created by removing one of the flag stones in the Flag Market - was axed when the technical services department refused to give it the go-ahead, while the Harris is currently home to a collection of empty book shelves.

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