Weston-super-Mare, England

Tim Cooke

Blue skies and sunshine over Dismaland! Hardly what the UK street artist Banksy intended as he blended grimness and seaside life in his crowd-grabbing “Bemusement Park”, the place “where screams come true”.

Thousands queue daily for Dismaland

And still, whatever the weather, they queue, surging online in their hundreds of thousands, lining up each day at the beach at Weston-super- Mare in the south-west of England for a provocative poke in the eye over issues such as the refugee crisis in Europe, the commercial exploitation of children, the grossness and ghoulishness of paparazzi (and we who look on) at the death of “Cinderella” in an upturned pumpkin-coach accident.

Dismaland

I was lucky (or was it unlucky?) to be one of the 80,000 to get tickets so far. The exhibition is only on for a five-week run, closing September 27, 2015.

Banksy describes the Dismaland project as “an attempt to build a different kind of family day out – one that sends a more appropriate message to the next generation.”

He says: “… sorry kids. Sorry about the lack of meaningful jobs, global injustice and Channel 5. The fairytale is over, the world is sleepwalking towards climate catastrophe, maybe all that escapism will have to wait.”

Quite a tough imposition on kids I would have thought – but we can all take the point that a synthetic, fantasy upbringing creates a false sense of the world. And Bansky has his critics. He’s been accused of being repetitive, of turning his own work into a cliche, of selling out to the art market, of being a sham radical. of regurgitating sixth-form cynicism. And yet, and yet he has also consistently found a way to grab and articulate the public consciousness and conscience on some fundamental issues.

As with everything that works well, context is important. Situated near the Grand Pier and passing the donkey rides on the beach to get there, Dismaland is housed in a disused lido, the old Tropicana, where families whiled away their summers in times past.

Your mind is conditioned before you arrive to themes such as seaside kitsch and hig-volume, low-cost entertainment. Ratchet up a gear as you go inside and you get quirky confrontations with the cultural poverty of what passes as mass entertainment, the surly, clinical encounter with modern-day security or retail transaction, the seemingly endless appetite for pursuing celebrity whatever the cost to individuals and public conscience, the bankruptcy of public policy on the refugee crisis, the dehumanisation that accompanies corporate commercialism, the pollution we inflict on the natural environment, hunger versus plenty.

Remote control refugee boats at Dismaland

Banksy – and the 50 fellow artists who have joined him in this venture – is on the button with this stuff – which is why it has such resonance with a wide range and large number of people. He slaps you in the face with some of the sickly realities now hard-wired into daily experience.

The Dismaland Castle

Cinderella and the paparazzi

The fact is that there are different levels of awareness and understanding across society and societies about the issues highlighted in DismaIand. That’s why, I think, this venture shouldn’t be dismissed.

It is both mundane and profound in its tackiness, riven with twisted humour, engaging, poignant, shocking and sad. Sure there are some elements which are contrived and thin enough. But some of the main exhibits – such as the decaying Disney-esque castle displaying dead Cinderella and all those flashing cameras – are shocking social commentary. You already know the message, of course. But the pace of both heart and brain changes as you experience this visceral, sickening encounter.

And so it should be. Dismaland. Summer 2015. A tacky day out? A day to remember!

PS You “Exit Through The Gift Shop”

Dismaland – A day-out to remember