Things in Bristol are really going downhill. A proposal by artist Luke Jerram aims to transform Park Street by setting up a 90-metre water slide to transport its citizens from the top of the hill to the bottom.
The Park and Slide project – which is currently raising money through a crowdfunding site – will consist of a temporary slide made from plastic sheeting and hay bales, and will be free for the public to use. Compared to the pricetag attached to many urban infrastructure schemes the cost is low; a paltry £5,621.
"If we think about forms of transport, the best kinds are pleasurable as well as practical," says Jerram, who has a history of working on interactive public artprojects, including the hugely popular Street Pianos project, which now operates in 43 cities across the world.
"Bristol's very hilly – imagine if we had permanent slides about the city, running from Clifton to Hotwells or Cotham to Stokes Croft?" says Jerram, who conceived the idea during last summer's heatwave.
"I've got an office on Park Street and I was just looking out the window and thought, how nice would it be to have a slide out there..." he says. "It's all about looking at the city in a new way. I'm interested in thinking of Bristol as a canvas for architectural intervention. This is our city and it's up to us to think about how we want it to be in the future."
For Jerram, the project is quite tailored to Bristol, and not just because of the hills. "I think it would have been very hard to get a project like this off the ground in London, for example, arranging for a major road to be closed for the day. Bristol is smaller and the project highlights the willingness and possibility of a city. Everyone says a city should be creative, dynamic, edgy, but is it really? Can we overcome the bureaucracy? It's a test."
On this occasion the outlook is good. The idea, which already has the backing of Bristol City Council, enjoyed a test run last year, when a 50m chute was set up in Ashton Court. If the plan goes ahead the slide will be installed on May 4 as part of the city's Make Sundays Special programme of cultural events.
