The first UK tour, Summer 2012

Torbay - Plymouth - Exeter - Weymouth - London 

2 June – 2 July 2012

This summer, New York artist Kurt Perschke brings his celebrated art project, the fifteen foot inflatable RedBall, to the UK for its first tour. Arriving on the streets of the English Riviera in Torbay in June, RedBall then tours to Plymouth, Exeter, Weymouth before ending its tour on London’s South Bank.

From Chicago to Barcelona, Taipei to Abu Dhabi, RedBall has intrigued and engaged people all over the world. The sculptural performance appears as a series of daily urban architectural interventions and the gigantic ball has been seen in unexpected locations worldwide - squeezed into alleyways and underpasses, inflated in town squares, and squashed into bus shelters and bridge arches. The playful and charismatic nature of RedBall sparks the imagination across cultures and continents.

The UK tour of RedBall is co-produced by Torbay Council and The Dartington Hall Trust. During the tour RedBall will visit each city, changing location several times. For a short while, neglected spaces become realms of possibilities as the ball literally squashes into place, at once occupying and celebrating our built environment.

As Perschke says ‘On the surface, the experience seems to be about the ball itself as an object, but the true power of the project is what it can create for those who experience it. As RedBall 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. That invitation to engage, to collectively imagine, is the true essence of the RedBall Project.’

Tour Dates (exact locations to be announced)

Torbay: 2-5 June 2012
Plymouth:  8-12 June
Exeter: 15-19 June
Weymouth: 21-25 June
London: 27 June - 2 July