Dismaland, all the bad things in the world, all in one place
After four weeks of waiting and a week before it closed I finally managed to weave in a visit to Banksy's Dismaland exhibit at Weston-super-Mare. Having previously driven past the Bristol exhibition and abandoned my attempt at one glance of the very, very long queue, this time I'd tried fighting the masses in an online scrum to get a guaranteed ticket, but to no avail. And so I risked the queue finally after driving up and down the M5 three times previously.
Turning up and waiting in the walk-up queue I found myself right near the back but next to some happy and easy-going people who made what turned out to be a two-hour wait quite easy to digest. One lady had an 'insider' stood on a balcony opposite who was relaying the queue progress. Everyone else (an intelligent looking bunch I'd say) was neatly lined up to the righthand side patiently - I think the reappearance of the sun helped this.
So far, so dismal, Dismaland pronounced dismal land
So finally we all got near the front to stand in muddy puddles to the aroma of donkey straw which I felt to be apt for the occasion. As a young child Weston-super-Mare's Pontins holiday park saw me sitting on a donkey that decided to bolt off and win the race before it had started (and I'm sure I dreamt that night that the saddle slid underneath the donkey on the way, cartoon-style).
I paid my £3 and was handed my 'Banksy Band' then told to get moving. I went through real security (to check for spray paints), then Bill Barminsky's security screening room where I had a cardboard scanner slapped on my face and run over my head.
Bill Barminsky's security screening room at Dismaland
Dismaland 'The happiest place on earth..a theme park like no other' sinister, traumatising and overall, dismal. I felt compulsed to go just at the very mention of it, expecting a political experience to fit with my very own thoughts and feelings of the world we're currently living in.
And so I wasn't disappointed. Although I wish I'd turned up earlier because what could have been four hours to take in all the work for me was only two so I had to try and take in as much as possible in a limited time without reading up on my way around. I did manage quite a few photos which you can view in full on my Flickr gallery but didn't get chance to take a look in the Museum of Cruel Objects, the Big Top Freak Show, Astronaut's Caravan or check out the payday loans for kids.
The main exhibition was the most serious part of Dismaland for me, it touched on so much of what's wrong with the world due to the diversity of artists participating. In total 61 artists are listed as having work curated into the show from worldwide, 61 perspectives on the challenges that can only be overcome by trying to influence political leaders who aren't listening. A range of issues covering genetic engineering, the mis-sold dream we're living, abuse of the world's natural resources, the control structures we live in that protect corporate gain, impending doom, war and various angles at which the different artists are exploring these topics.
Photographing someone photographing impending doom, I think she adds to it. This is Banksy's piece, in my mind a kind of summary of the work inside the exhibition hall, after the looking and thinking bit and before going outside and being absorbed into the more experiential bemusements
Ever a fan of dystopian literature, for me distopian topics within art really nail it for our era. I grew up to messages of the impending doom that would occur in our lifetime if we did nothing to make sure that global warming, pollution, war weren't eradicated. Chemistry books and other literature were illustrated with diagrams of how the world could be (and now, is) poisoned. At school we learnt biochemistry, we cut up cells to grow 'warts' on carrots (whether this was part of a government strategy to develop these skills in the smart kids of Generation X to help the likes of Monsanto rather than to enlighten I'm sure nobody will tell us but at least we're aware). Women's magazines had messages of supporting Peta, Greenpeace and other campaigning charities so that we looked outside of ourselves into our surroundings for things to care about, rather than growing obsessed with our Selves.
Yet now it feels like these messages have been obliterated, and so to this end I'm grateful that under the umbrella of Banksy's ability to talk to a wider audience, this curation of work and all the different voices of these artists are together a full story of what, for me at least, is most of what is wrong with the world. My only fear is that the masses aren't listening, or they don't want to because they either feel powerless against the authorities to do anything, or they're self-obsessed, both of which are themes in the show.
Stampede by Josh Keyes shows the impact of urban sprawl on our surroundings
Cucumber Killer Whale by Art Director Brock Davis - he's out of water so this reminds me of SeaWorld..
The Tower Block by Lee Madgwick - Brutalist architecture irrespective of the environment it sits in - I read this as being that our development into the countryside is ever-increasing
Genetic engineering in the foreground amplified to be even more sinister by Dietrich Wegner's mushroom cloud behind, it's like the mice have escaped from the lab during a nuclear war - perhaps this is a dark future after we've interfered with nature
Several pieces by Paco Pomet were on show at Dismaland that illustrate man trying to conquer the natural world - so much in this piece Rojo (Red) that the insides of the world are being split open, we are literally bleeding the world dry
Paco Pomet - trying to feel childhood innocence again despite all the problems in the world
Suburban tranquility scenes balanced the big issues with the normality of daily life to add context at a more local and British level. The appropriateness of Weston-super-Mare as a destination for the show could be seen through themes such as seaside holidays in the work of Laura Lancaster who creates anonymous seaside paintings from photographs. Site-specific work by Maskull Lasserre in which he created sinister cloven hooves and bigfoot moulds in which to footprint the sand outside meant that the context for all of the bigger problems was brought to a local level to show the issues are all ours, even if we don't see them in the place that we live.
Laura Lancaster's distorted and anonymous images
Jessica Harrison's hand sculpted and painted porcelain figures tattooed with symbols of kitsch and suburban tranquillity
And so what of the big guns of the show - the big exhibits such as Banksy's Cinderella's Castle or cinema? Banksy's own pieces - a satirical, humorous and cutting commentary on the media, lives wasted playing to the tune of Government will, political commentary on the dumbing down of serious issues and, with Cinderella's castle, the media whirlwind that is the castle that masks problems and is a focal point for propaganda and constructs that rule the population and keep the public under control. While we're working just to stay alive our world is surrounded by a blur of amusements to keep us distracted until Death takes us (and Death is having a party at our expense).
Cinderella's sinister ending in the Dismaland Castle
Banksy's biggest piece, the giant Cinderella castle offering souvenir photos of your trip to see the press and media onslaught of an ended dream
If you fancied being a real life part of the commentary, you could pay to happily ride a fairground carousel as though it were a normal attraction, oblivious until the horsemeat scandal was revealed when it turned, exposing cover up and corruption, use and abuse of animals. To me, this talks about the hypocrisy of how we live in line with what messages we're fed from childhood and more broadly, messages fed to us by corporations.
Horsemeat scandal - what's in your food, do you even notice?
Leading nicely onto the use of SeaWorld and other 'dolphinariums' and amusement parks fuelling a dark and underground trade in wild animals slaughtered and brought into captivity. You can find out more about this by watching The Cove Movie or Blackfish. But remember to bring an iron stomach.
Banksy's Orca being forced to perform jumping out of the toilet into a murky muddy paddling pool - how is it as a race we think it's acceptable to keep whales and dolphins in captivity for our entertainment, do people think about how they get there?
Many of the bemusement park exhibits were experiential - hooking a duck from an oil spill, driving the remote controlled refugee boats. In my limited time the one that I took part in was 'buying the souvenir brochure' from the ice cream van. This was an utter delight to me. I queued up in a British way and waited a little while as the couple in front of me handed over their £5 to be handed the brochure in the most painfully slow way by a despondent and truly miserable Dismaland employee. She was so well cast for the role, her whole demeanour and facial expressions lending themselves to not caring. Slowly the change was handed over and it was my turn. I had a variation on the routine, reluctant handover of the brochure, a scowl and then the slow uncurling of the middle finger followed by having my fiver change defaced by slowly rolling it up and folding it into a really small wrap. I've kept it that way until I need to spend it. It made me laugh.
You get some attitude with your change round here
Finally, before the word count here makes you drift off, was the element of Government power, censorship and control. Jeffery Archer's burning books (all hail the internet as a medium of mass control) and Ed Hall's handmade protest banners both reflecting ways in which other than art, people have found their voice to try and influence government - together with graffiti as mediums that Governments invest time and energy in controlling. Oh, and a great big riot van used in Northern Ireland turned into a water slide...
The system's corrupt - Banksy's riot van in front of the Dismaland castle
Various announcements for 'go on you lot, clear off' were made and obediently I had to Exit through the Gift Shop. Ejected.
