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For immediate release 30 August 2016 RSA PROUD SPONSORS OF “FIRES ANCIENT” ST PAUL’S CATHEDRAL PROJECTED ARTWORK THE City of will once again be engulfed in flames some 350 years after the Great Fire of London, when the dome of St Paul’s Cathedral lights up with a fiery projection to mark the historic anniversary.

RSA, the first UK insurer to be created after the Great Fire of London, is sponsoring “Fires Ancient”, a dramatic exhibition of contemporary art which will project a fiery blaze across the landmark building.

Artist, Martin Firrell, has created the fiery extravaganza, running from the 1st September – 4th September, to depict the impact of the Great Fire of London on the Cathedral itself and the birth of the building, designed by Christopher Wren that emerged. The projection will be visible from across the river with a unique close-up view from the public Roof Terrace at One New Change.

Part of Great Fire 350 project produced by Artichoke, the “London’s Burning” festival is a contemporary arts festival marking the anniversary of one of the capital’s greatest disasters. A series of spectacular art events, all free to the public, will take place in key sites across the City, Southbank and Bankside from 30th August - 4th September 2016, marking this momentous event in London’s history.

Rachel Cotton, Real Estate Director, RSA, said: “We are proud to sponsor the “Fires Ancient” projected artwork onto St Paul’s Cathedral. This festival is particularly important as it reflects our 310 year history and our ties with the City of London. Rising from the ashes, the original Sun Insurance company was created in 1706 to help the people of London get back on their feet. Hundreds of years later and following quite of bit of change, we might now be known as RSA, but we’re still making things better for our customers.”

Sarah Coop, Development Director, Artichoke, said "RSA was one of the first sponsors to come on board, marking the link with the past and their role in the present. We really value their support for Fires Ancient, Martin Firrell's projection onto the dome of St Paul's Cathedral, which remembers how the city rose phoenix- like from the ashes".

For more information visit: www.rsagroup.com.

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1 Enquiries: Deepa Bose 020 7337 5710 [email protected]

About RSA: With a 300 year heritage, RSA is a multinational quoted insurance group. Focusing on general insurance, RSA’s core markets are the UK & Ireland, Scandinavia and Canada, with the capability to write insurance business across the globe. RSA’s core businesses have around 13,500 employees with net written premiums of £5.7bn in 2015.

About Artichoke Producers of extraordinary live events, Artichoke is one of the country’s leading creative companies and is a registered charity, funded by Arts Council England.

At Artichoke we use art to undermine the mundane and disrupt the everyday, and create a new kind of world that we’d all like to live in.

Our previous projects include ’s The Sultan’s Elephant, which brought an estimated one million people onto the streets of London in 2006; La Machine’s 50 foot high mechanical spider for ’s Capital of Culture celebrations in 2008; ’s One & Other 100day long invasion of the Fourth Plinth in in London in 2009; and Deborah Warner’s commission for the London 2012 Festival, Peace Camp, a nationwide celebration of landscape and poetry, which took place across eight separate sites around the UK; and Temple by David Best in Derry~Londonderry, attended by more than 60,000 people. Artichoke creates and produces Lumiere, the UK’s largest light festival, which has been staged in the medieval English city of Durham every two years since 2009; and in Derry~Londonderry in Northern Ireland as part of the celebrations for City of Culture 2013. In January 2016, the company staged the first Lumiere London, supported by the Mayor of London, attracting estimated audiences of over 1 million over four nights. www.artichoke.uk.com

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