BOMPAS & PARR'S FUNLAND:
Pleasures & Perils of the Erotic Fairground
Museum of Sex, New York City, Open until spring 2015
This summer saw the launch of Bompas & Parr’s FUNLAND: Pleasures & Perils of the Erotic Fairground, an art installation in New York featuring a selection of carnival inspired attractions for audiences to enjoy and experience while they contemplate the sexual subtext of carnivals.
This immersive exhibition, commissioned by the Museum of Sex, features five attractions designed to stimulate all five senses in both subtle and not-so-subtle ways. Physical, visual and olfactory experiences are utilized to give the audience a breathless rush of endorphins (similar to those released at the point of orgasm), challenge their strength and agility, and allow them to compete with and impress friends and lovers and to share the love with other visitors.
Among the interactive experiences, visitors are invited to jump high in Jump for Joy, a bouncy castle made of giant, over-sized breasts (watch the slo-mo film here); scale a climbing wall of bodily orifices and appendages in Grope Mountain; and lose themselves in The Tunnel of Love – a mirrored labyrinth that leads patrons on a climactic journey to the Gräfenberg (or 'G-') Spot, all while listening to a custom carnival soundscape by composer Dom James and tempted by edible treats designed by Bompas & Parr.
To illustrate the rich history of fairground eroticism and to help provide the cultural context for this exhibition, Bompas & Parr collaborated with Professor Vanessa Toulmin, Director of the UK National Fairground Archive. To learn more about the historical context behind this exhibition, please read Toulmin’s, As Graceful As They Were Disgraceful: Eroticism and the Fairground.
What the papers say about Funland
‘If this boob bounce house doesn't turn you on to art, we don’t know what will.’
Huffington Post
‘A mixture of vulgarity, playfulness, inventiveness, crudity, childishness and mischievous provocation.'
New York Times
‘Enough to send a teenage boy into spasms.’
Complex Art and Design
‘Like a Willy Wonka sex dream.’
New York Magazine
‘Is this the breast bouncy castle in the world? Huge inflatable made out of boobs'
Irish Mirror
‘None quite compare with Funland, the Museum of Sex’s new carnivalesque mashup of erotica, edibles and architecture.’
The Atlantic
SNAKE OIL: The Greatest Flavoured Lube on Earth
With sex the new food, Bompas & Parr has been working on our first flavoured lube, thereby uniting gustatory and salacious pleasures.
Thrill your tongue with a fun-flavoured lube designed to evoke the taste of the eroticised fairground. Carnival barkers of yesteryear would hawk intriguing ointments and lotions from their fairground stalls. Our own Snake Oil captures the romance of a day at the fair and is all the more amazing as it actually works. Use this silky textured lube to conjure the taste of the fairground for your experienced palate. The results are droolworthy.
Pick it up direct from the MoSex’s well-stocked shop.
FLAVOUR PROFILE
Topnotes:
Sweets
Cotton candy
Candies
Popcorn
Toffee apple
Caramel
Sugared almonds
Showman’s hair pomade
Candied pineapple
Slushie breath
Salty sweat
Heart notes:
Lurid showground paint – worn by weather but still garish
Metallic 'organ air' pushed through tin pipes
Carbon electric notes of bumper cars
Fuel oil from the ghost train
Perfume waft from the other fairground-goers
Florals from the hot night gardens
Woodchip from the animal cages
Ozone from the oxidized air around the neon
Cordite
Base notes:
Patchouli to give the sense of mossy woody earth smells trodden by the attendees
Woods, basalms and resinous scent
Bompas & Parr's Funland
Museum of Sex
233 Fifth Avenue (at 27th Street)
NY 10016
New York City
The exhibition is open until Spring 2015.
Photography:
Slides: Photography by Mosex
Poster: Art Direction by Emma Rios and Olivia French. Photography by Neil Watson
Carnival Story: Courtesy of the National Fairground Archive, University of Sheffield