Banksy has been secretly assembling Dismaland, his savage satire of the world famous Disneyland theme park, in Weston-super-Mare, a West Country seaside town in the UK, and it’s not exactly the happiest place on Earth. In fact, his theme park, which opens to the public Saturday and sits on the 2.5 acre site of the Tropicana lido, is the shadowy artist’s first “bemusement park,” and it’s packed full of his trademark subversive artworks.
A new Dismaland website announces that the project will be a “festival of art, amusements and entry-level anarchism”, including the work of 46 other international artists. Other attractions include a cinema, mini golf, a circus tent and a ‘Guerilla Island’, a celebration of guerilla art, which will also give workshops ‘on how to hack billboards’. Live Friday night events include an evening with Kate Tempest, Pussy Riot and Massive Attack. Dismaland will also include three large galleries, which together comprise “the finest collection of contemporary art ever assembled in a North Somerset seaside town,” according to the website.
Banksy’s twisted Disney, his most ambitious project since his New York residency, features work by 13 American artists, including Jenny Holzer and Mike Ross, whose ‘Big Rig Jig’, an S-shaped sculpture of two, upended fuel tankers, is one of the biggest installations on the site. The show also features a giant, damaged, Cinderella’s castle, an outsized pin wheel, works by Damien Hirst, and a huge scaffolding horse by Swedish artist Ben Long. Dismaland will be open every day until September 27.
Up until today, the town council had spent months telling locals and tourists the elaborate cover story that the massive installations being built on the site were part of a film set for an upcoming Hollywood suspense thriller movie called Grey Fox.
The name “Dismaland,” meanwhile, comes from a Banksy-authored piece of graffiti that’s from as far back as 2012, which may indicate that this project has been in the works for quite some time.
Oops, here’s the pic I meant to include on that last Tweet. #Rain #Dismaland pic.twitter.com/URFYFbw9mo
— Francis Clarke (@francisclarke) August 5, 2013
This also isn’t the first time Banksy has trolled Disney. Back in 2006, Banksy inserted a life-sized inflatable doll dressed as a Guantanamo Bay detainee (orange jumpsuit, black hood, handcuffs) in the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad ride at Disneyland in Anaheim, California. According to BBC News, the figure remained there for 90 minutes before being removed, and a spokesman for Banksy claimed “the stunt was intended to highlight the plight of terror suspects at the controversial detention centre in Cuba.”
To visit Dismaland, visitors will need to buy a £3 ticket to the exhibition from a special Dismaland website. Tickets will go on sale tomorrow and can booked for sessions up to ten days in advance.
The exhibit open for two sessions each day – 11am to 6pm or 7pm to 11pm. A limited number of tickets will also be available at the site.
