Dismaland, Britain's first dystopian theme park, has opened in the town of Weston super Mare (Leo Hornak/PRI)
"Welcome to Dismaland. End. Joy."
There is a something refreshingly depressingly about the greeting (delivered with a scowl) that you get at the entrance to Britain's newest tourist attraction. For the last week, the graffiti artist Banksy has transformed an abandoned funfair in the English seaside town of Weston Super Mare into a "Bemusement Park" — a dystopian theme park dedicated tp protest art, sarcastic political satire and silly puns. Banksy himself called it " a theme park whose big theme is – theme parks should have bigger themes.”
Among the attractions are a pond and water slide built out of a rusting police armored car (the water cannon provides a pretty fountain on the top), a pay day loan shop for the under-12s, and a carousel featuring emergency workers in hazmat suits. A DIY guide on how to remove junk food advertising and replace it with your own art is available from another tent.
Some of the humor takes a darker tone. In one exhibit, Europe's migrant crisis is evoked by toy boats, crammed with tiny human figures, floating miserably in a pond of oily water, pursued by police tugs. In the Museum of Cruel Objects the evolution of the taser and 'less lethal' baton rounds are traced from animal testing to militarized police deployment in cities across the world.
But perhaps the most consistent target of Dismaland's satire is more suprising: the great British seaside holiday. Towns like Weston super Mare have fallen on hard times. For decades, they were hugely popular as a cheap and cheerful summer destinations for British families. In the last 20 years or so, those holidaymakers have gone elsewhere, and many towns now feel empty, decaying and neglected.
Dismaland is built on the ruins of Tropicana, a much-loved pool and lido — an open air beach, that closed 15 years ago due to failing revenues. And many of the exhibits refer directly to that sense of seaside depression.
One of the Dismaland exhibits shows an old woman being eaten alive by swarms of seagulls on a park bench. Just down the you can still see real old ladies being mobbed by actual seagulls. Another exhibit offers the chance to play a selection of comically unwinnable games for meaningless prizes. Half a mile up the promenade, the Grand Pier still offers the same opportunity with slightly different slogans, for a similar price. Balloons with 'I am an imbecile' written on them are available in the Dismaland gift shop. So far they are not available on the Grand Pier.
Sometimes it feels like the real risk for Dismaland is not that it might shock Britain, but that it might feel too familiar.
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