Dismaland appeared in 2015 in Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, England as Banksy’s largest pop-up art project.

The exhibition was set up in the abandoned Tropicana lido and opened on 21 August, closing on 27 September, only 36 days later. Designed as a dark parody of Disneyland, this ‘bemusement park’ offered dystopian commentary ranging from climate change and consumerism to war, surveillance and the refugee crisis. For many it remains just as powerful today.

Across four acres there is a dystopian funfair landscape. Banksy’s giant Ferris wheel turns crookedly, Cinderella’s crashed carriage hangs lifeless while surrounded by paparazzi, the water features are filthy and the arcade games are rigged; visitors are greeted by sullen, incompetent and irritable staff and security. Fairytale elements are distorted by destruction and absurdity.

Banksy reverses Disneyland’s ‘happy ending’ stories. He questions the absurdity of capitalism and consumer society. In Dismaland Banksy created 10 new works and invited 58 artists, transforming the traditional amusement park into a critical art space. With the slogan ‘family theme park unsuitable for children’, he satirised pop culture’s consumption rituals. Banksy aimed to break norms by depicting a ‘scrappy, incoherent and self-obsessed’ world.

Art critics describe Dismaland as ‘the boldest satire in contemporary art’. The BBC praised it as ‘thought-provoking and haunting’.

In Dismaland, 4,000 tickets were sold daily, attracting a total of 150,000 visitors. It generated £20 million for the local economy and turned the forgotten town of Weston-super-Mare into an art centre. 

After closing, the materials were transported to the Calais Jungle refugee camp where 12 shelters, a children’s playground and a community space were built.