Thank you, Banksy, for keeping the dream alive with Dismaland.
And, no, I don’t really think that my Shadow Art friends and I could have pulled off anything this ambitious. I do think, however, that this was the direction in which we were trending… dark social commentary.
I recall several meetings, for instance, where we debated whether or not to set up pet euthanasia stations so that people could easily dispose of their no-longer-young-and-cute pets. And there was talk of a small glass booth in the middle of the room where guests could take turns locking themselves in with someone smoking synthetic cannabis, the drug that apparently makes people want to eat the faces off of one another. There were other ideas too. I seem to recall something about wanting to sell deep fried pork sludge on a stick, and a factory farm petting zoo. And we seriously discussed having face-painters who, regardless of what children asked for, would only apply Hitler mustaches… But Banksy and his collaborators did it better. It’s like the Black Mirror of theme parks. Very smart. Aggressively thought provoking.
Here’s video of Dismaland.
7 Comments
I’ll never forgive that shiat movie but this looks pretty great.
The image of the dead princess surrounded by paparazzi is going to stay with me for a long time.
If you can’t find pork sludge on a stick to sell, try seafood raised on pig feces!
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2012-10-11/asian-seafood-raised-on-pig-feces-approved-for-u-s-consumers
Billed as an “alternative to the sugar-coated tedium of the average family day out.”
A viable alternative:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=47&v=LY-xgS7K3Xc
Andy Diderosi, who thinks nothing of tiger wrangling, is considering buying the go-karts from Action Land on ebay. He has not yet said what he wants to do with them, but maybe it involves a go kart track/wild safari adventure through the Packard Plant.
I really can’t believe you, and so many others, are so sucked in by Banksy. Ripping off 40 year old Mad Magazine pieces. Such a genius provocateur.
Too bad there wasn’t enough interest to keep Shadow Art Fair alive. It would have been the perfect venue for a Native American sports gear exchange booth. Fair-goers could bring items deemed to be racist, such as EMU Huron sweatshirts, and exchange them for comparable gear, such as Florida State Seminoles jerseys, that are deemed to NOT be racist because they are sanctioned by the Seminoles. Fair-goers could get their faces painted and be instructed how to perform a culturally-sensitive, Seminoles-approved, “tomahawk chop”, and learn how to distinguish it from racist tomahawk chops as performed by fans of non-sanctioned teams.