Red Ball Project gives you wings
With interaction and imagination at heart, the Red Ball Project is public art at its most playful.
Artist Kurt Perschke’s idea started life as a single commission for Arts-in-Transit, a public art organisation based in St Louis, USA, when he jammed the giant inflatable ball under a bridge.
Since then its squashed itself into unlikely locations around the globe; many of these chosen by people who have happened across the project, says Perschke.
‘As Red Ball travels around the world, people approach me on the street with excited suggestions about where to put it in their city. In that moment the person is not a spectator but a participant in the act of imagination,’ he says.
It is though, on the one hand, a big red squashy ball and Perschke says, ‘Good sculpture is about tactility about touching,’ but he also says, ‘The work is ultimately not about the ball, it’s about what the ball facilitates and the energies around it.’
The Red Ball Project heads to Torbay in June before touring Plymouth, Exeter, Weymouth, and London’s Southbank.
Bring the Ball to Birmingham!