Banksy's 'Dismaland' is an escape from mindless escapism

Britain?s newest theme park, ?Dismaland? by street artist Banksy, is tagged as the UK?s most disappointing new visitor attraction and features work by other artists including Damien Hirst Britain?s newest theme park is ?Dismaland,? which opened on Aug. 21, with a decrepit castle, a merry-go-round horse set to be cooked and model boats on a pool full of refugees, all courtesy of British street artist Banksy. 

The ?Bemusement Park? in Weston-super-Mare, an English seaside town near Banksy?s home city of Bristol, is tagged as ?The U.K.?s most disappointing new visitor attraction!? and features work by other artists including Damien Hirst. 

The secretive Banksy, famed for his ironic murals in unexpected places, said the show was something different, as his street art had become ?just as reassuringly white, middle class and lacking in women as any other art movement.? 

Visitors to the event, put on in a disused swimming pool, can have a souvenir photo taken in Cinderella?s Castle against a backdrop of a dead princess in a coach crash, while surly stewards carry bunches of balloons labelled ?I?m an imbecile.? 

Banksy, whose identity has never been revealed, described it as ?a festival of art, amusements and entry-level anarchism.? 

?It?s not a swipe at Disney,? he said in a press release. ?I banned any imagery of Mickey Mouse from the site. It?s a showcase for the best line-up of artists I could imagine, apart from the two who turned me down.? 

The site, with signage bearing more than a passing resemblance to Disneyland, is full of the artist?s subversive statements and epigrams on Western culture, the media, capitalism and extreme disparities of wealth. 

A model pensioner is engulfed in...