When I learned that "Red Ball Project" was visiting the UK, I was excited. I was even more excited to learn that it would be visiting London and be in a new place each day. My current circumstances prevented me from seeing it sooner as I no longer work in London, but I made the effort to travel to SouthBank, London, to visit it on Sunday, its final day in the city.
On Sunday, the inflatable red ball was wedged underneath a cafe on SouthBank's Royal Festival Hall terrace. It's not my favourite setting for the project. I've seen photographs of it hanging up on one of the new bridges or wedged in an alley between two buildings in Exeter, and those look nicer to me than wedged in the SouthBank terrace. However, it was still great to finally meet "Red Ball Project", as I've been following it online since I heard about it visiting the UK. It was great to see others interacting and drawn to it to investigate. I watched how people interacted with it for a few minutes, and I overheard comments from passers-by wondering what the purpose of the large inflatable object was. Many people that gravitated toward the ball were drawn to touch the ball or get photographs in poses with it, such as attempting to push it, climb around it, or pretend that it would crush them.
About "Red Ball Project":
Red Ball Project features a large fifteen-foot inflatable red ball, and this ball is positioned in an unlikely place amongst the architecture or cityscape. The project engages the viewer. The creative mind behind this project is Kurt Perschke, a New York artist. In an interview on DesignWeek, he mentions that people actively imagine and participate by suggesting ideas for where to put the ball, and goes on to state that "good sculpture is about tactility about touching," and "The work is ultimately not about the ball, it's about what the ball facilitates and the energies around it." (1)
Kurt Perschke gives an in-depth interview upon his arrival in the UK at the start of the project launch this year, which you can read (2). The official website for the project is: http://redballuk.co.uk/. You can follow Red Ball Project to all of the other places it visits in the world.
2) Guise, May. Red Ball Project at London 2012: Interview with Kurt Perschke. http://www.theurbn.com/2012/05/redball-project-at-london-2012-interview-with-kurt-perschke/ [2 May, 2012].
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