An antidote to HIGH CONCEPT / LOW FUN public art proposals?

I’ve seen a bunch of proposals for large, expensive landmark artworks in the countryside. No doubt earnestly meant, but they amount to pages of impenetrable arty nonsense painting over a disappointingly mundane and joyless thing at the end.

What’s wrong with something that’s simple to understand, easy to like and fun to visit. Think Angel of the North, the Eiffel Tower or the London Eye, but without the budget. Closer in spirit and cost to those giant roadside attractions in the US. (E.g. Gnome Chomsky in New York - the world’s 2nd or 3rd Largest Gnome 😁 - love it)

Here’s my pitch… 🥁🥁🥁

• It’s a giant fork in a hill.💥
• It’ll be big. Really big. 💥🤯💥
• You’re going to be able to STAND 👏 BETWEEN 👏 THE 👏 PRONGS!
  🎤💧.
• It’ll include metal from melted down cutlery donated by local people - probably those odd forks that you probably accidentally nicked from work. Could even be a spoon, who cares. You’ll be able to say: “hey y’know what? I put a spoon in the giant fork!”. 💬
• I reckon it’ll be more fun if local people have tableware in the game!🥄🍴

And here’s the thing. It doesn’t mean anything at all. It doesn’t represent something. It’s just a massive fork stuck in a hill. Because that’s simply a fun thing to do in my book. It doesn’t need a backstory or an artist to explore anything - no angst or yearning, no immersion in liminal spaces. Bring your own meaning if you like. Or don’t. I won’t be. I find it pure like this. Just a fork in a hill for no reason. Come see the fork, it’s big mind. Really big.

Pun opportunities

When all is said and done, we are simple folk. I reckon more of us enjoy shouting “FORK ME!” while taking a selfie next to a giant fork, than studiously reading a pdf about why the pile of rubble in front of them is worthy of attention.

Don’t get me wrong, I like loads of modern art where concept is king, I just don’t believe it should be the only game in town. Especially when it comes to public installations.

Too few artists consider the punning opportunities when creating their masterpieces and that is a crying shame..

• Hill Fork is a bit like Hill Fort - weak, but it’s a start
• The Fork can straddle a path… It’ll be A FORK IN THE PATH… COME ON! Comedy gold!
• When you arrive you shall declare “Fork Me that’s big!”. “Fork you?” will be your companion’s response enquiring about a photo opportunity. After gurning and picnicking beneath the prongs you’ll suggest “Fork off?” and leave knowing you have justly punned.

Rituals

Giant foodstuffs could be placed upon the prongs at different times of the year to invent new rituals - the dancing of the peas, the loading of the sausage, sweetcorn sonnets.

Fork-lore

Let’s harness the upswell of support for conspiracy theories and “alternative facts” to backfill this history of the fork. Because restoring old things seems less controversial than creating new, let’s tell people the history ‘they’ erased from the history books. The story ‘they’ didn’t want told. We will not have our collective history and heritage erased…

Many moons ago a horrible tradition swept the land started by a King who thought it funny to carry a bejewelled fork and stick it into any food he fancied. He had made a royal decree that any food he forked became his.

Unfortunately it didn’t stop at food and it didn’t stop at the king. It spread to livestock, land and most distressingly people. Everyone had to be extremely weary of anyone with an ounce of power, lest they be forked.

The good people of Ulverston have always been a creative folk and it is here that the tradition of tattooing a small fork into your own skin began. This deemed them to be pre-forked and so already claimed albeit by themselves. And to stop the greedy rich barons who tried to fork every shop and every spot of land they hatched a plan.

They collected together all the cutlery they could gather, melted it into The Giant Fork of Ulverston and in a lavish ceremony planted the fork collectively into Ulverston soil to claim the land for everyone.

Perhaps together we can restore Ulverston’s once majestic Hill Fork to it’s rightful place in Flan Hill so it can once again stand as a beacon of Ulverston’s creative defiance against the tyranny of normality.

Bring your own meaning

My feeling is simply that giant versions of everyday things are exciting and fun. That’s where the meaning starts and ends, but feel free to bring your own meaning. For example:

• Fork Hill represents mankind’s insatiable desire to devour our environment in an orgy of consumerism.
• Using metal reclaimed (or dare I say ‘mined’) from local cutlery we return to the earth the very minerals we stole. At the same time branding a reminder of our greed upon our retinas with a totem of our greed.
• A call to arms for all of us to embrace our childhood selves and to ask why, why, why more often?
• A new icon to worship in a gluttonous age. Offerings must be made to the fork, or your fast food emporiums will run dry of grease and stodge
• It’s a giant FORK YOU! to the elitist art world.
• A reminder in a world of disposable plastic forks that the fork is a mighty and glorious tool to be treated with reverence and awe.
• Something to do with a giant forky Sundial!

I’ll leave it there I’m getting tired! 🥱

Who’s with me?