Dismaland: A Daytrip To Banksy'S Dismaland And Weston-Super-Mare

A snapshot of #Banksy's Dismaland and ‘Weston’ society. The boom, by @BarryCawston is a harsh satire for today's absurd reality. #QuestionEverything

Photographer Barry Cawston who lives near Weston Super Mare, documented the Dismaland site more than fifteen times from its launch on 20 Aug through to its grand finale on 27 Sept 2015. Each time he went there, he also went in to Weston town centre to photograph the local people, tourists and situations he encountered. The resulting body of work is a snapshot of the British public at large, and their interaction with art that was, paradoxically, a satire on their own reality.

Like many Bristol kids, Banksy used to holiday in Weston and play at the Tropicana leisure centre, where he was to install his vast 'Bemusement Park' some thirty years on. So while the title for this project 'Are We There Yet?' nods to Banksy's Weston links old and new, it shakes its head in disbelief at the state of contemporary British society, represented by the visual similes which Cawston constructs between downtown Weston, and the scathing sideshows of Dismaland.

Cawston has created an unusual photographic record of a moment in time, which he admits he didn't fully appreciate the significance of when he started it. This is 'sharp-eyed' street photography in full swing. It is also a continuation of the portraits series he started when studying in Leeds, his architectural work, and a development of his own visual language, 'Words in Colour'. Cawston is an unstoppable visual journalist and, as the Weston photographs show in particular, he's hungry for controversy and adventure.

With the encouragement of co-collaborators, including Dismaland contributors and staff, the photographs have now become a book and touring exhibition.

The book, which takes us from hazy morning beach scenes through to after dark revelry, reveals satirically delicious pairings of Dismaland and Weston shots, setting up uncomfortable dialogues between closed pages, now destined to endure. In these images, as Oscar Wilde once said, "Life imitates art far more than art imitates life. "

The development of the project has flowed, with writers and artist contributors coming forward, keen to be involved, so much so that the photographs and essays have now morphed in to an online media project under the same title, 'Are We There Yet?', signposted by the hashtag #QuestionEverything.

The latest digital phase of the project encourages people to share and discuss social and political developments through words and images. It is a third generation project on from Dismaland, if you like, and has been conceived to inspire more impactful work from others, which will in turn be shared and learned from.