Takeover of annual Power Plant fundraiser

Toronto, 2018: The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery, Toronto, invited Bompas and Parr to take over and design its annual fundraiser, the Power Ball during its 20th anniversary.

Carousal: Flavour Funfair was a super-powered, hyper-intense, ultra-glorious Power Plant Power Ball – a fairground powered by daring, by excitement, and most importantly, by flavour!

The sense of losing control is central to both the notion of a communal carouse and the motion of a carousel. Here, the funfair format took on a thought-provoking new guise as the manifestation of the perpetual search for ecstatic experience, sensory overload and ultimate satiation, turbocharged with taste experiences – elevated as the most impactful of sensual stimuli.

Based on conversations with Professor Vanessa Toulmin of the National Fairground and Circus Archive at Sheffield University, England, and inspired by Toronto-born Al Stencell, former showman and collector of fairground signage, the experience reimagined traditional rides and sideshows through the lens of taste.