When Banksy launched his much-talked about “Bemusement Park” Dismaland – a massive art installation with work from scores of visual artists that presents a thunderously bleak, dystopic version of your traditional theme park – a couple of curious things happened.
Firstly, lines to get into the park formed. Long ones. Very long ones.
Secondly, the project’s website completely crashed due to overwhelming demand for tickets.
Whether you believe either of these things to be a planned feature of the installation, or a happy coincidence that they really didn’t bother trying too hard to correct, there’s no denying that it fits remarkably well with the whole theme they’re going for.
Still, what good is massive, large scale art if no one can actually get in to see it? (Kinda perfect art, TBH. But that’s another story for another day).
And thus, Banksy and his team slapped together a better supported website and threw it back online, where tickets for the 5 week exhibit have been flying out the door.
To accompany that, a trailer for Dismaland has been released, that showcases a typical family experience at the “park,” set to cheery, Disney-style music.
It’s creepy AF.
That Cinderella crash/paparazzi piece has some reaaaaaaal Princess Di vibes about it and I love it/hate it in equal measure.
If you’re lucky enough to be in the area, you can check out the exhibit that the Guardian called “truly depressing, thin and quite boring” from now until September 27th. Tickets are scarce, though. So hop to it.
