Dismaland Revisited: Ten Years On
5th September 2025
Missed Dismaland the First Time?
A decade later Weston Museum brings it back to life through Barry Cawston’s lens
It is ten years since Dismaland put Weston on the world stage - and now you can relive it through the lens of acclaimed photographer Barry Cawston at Weston Museum.
Dismaland wasn’t your average theme park - it was more like Disneyland’s dark, twisted cousin. Set up by the famous street artist Banksy in Weston's Tropicana in 2015, it was packed with creepy, messed-up versions of things you’d normally expect to be cheerful. There was a crumbling fairytale castle, a dead-looking Cinderella in a crashed pumpkin carriage, and rides that felt more depressing than fun. Basically, it was like stepping into a nightmare version of a holiday brochure.
Tickets for the 2015 experience cost just £3, but the memory was priceless. Visitors were greeted by deliberately miserable staff trained to be rude and unhelpful. Buy a souvenir programme and it might be hurled at you with a grunt. Queues stretched down the seafront - not for candy floss or rollercoasters - but to see a crashed Cinderella carriage swarmed by paparazzi, a Grim Reaper in a dodgem, and dozens of politically charged, twisted artworks by some of the biggest names in contemporary art.
Now, ten years on, Dismaland is back - Banksy’s boldest experiment - brought to life in a powerful new exhibition of photographs by Barry Cawston at Weston Museum.
This is more than nostalgia. Whether you were one of the 150,000 lucky enough to be there, or you always regretted missing it, this exhibition offers a rare, immersive glimpse into the heart of the event that put Weston on the global cultural map.
Barry was there day after day. “It was like having the best pop-up bar in Britain on your doorstep,” he recalls. “I’d go down, have a coffee or a beer, just soak up the atmosphere - and then I’d see something, think that’s quite good, and do an hour’s photography.”
Cawston’s involvement with Dismaland and rise to being its official photographer started almost by accident.
“I went on the first night and started taking some pictures and putting them on Instagram. Pest Control (Banksy’s people) said ‘we really like what you’re doing here we want to discuss you becoming the official photographer.’”
He then heard nothing - but kept coming back more than 15 times, capturing images from a scene that fascinated him.
He said: “I just carried on. I thought maybe they’d found someone else to be their photographer.”
But he continued regardless – not sure whether he was official or not - drawn as if by some super power to keep returning to this weird and wonderful attraction. Because he didn’t know if he was working for them he was able to shoot with a free hand in his own style.
“I just kept coming and taking photographs. Every time I went, I’d see something different - something I hadn’t noticed, something new to photograph. Then I thought I’ve got to go to the last night, The Masked Ball. I think I got the last ticket to the Masked Ball. It was an incredible night. Then I thought I’d carry on photographing Weston through the following summer though to the Referendum Day. It became like a wider project.
He turned it into a book - Are We There Yet - and the rest is history.
Pest Control saw the book, loved it, and asked if they could use the images. And so, Barry Cawston ‘official photographer’ was born! He said: “I feel incredibly lucky. I feel blessed to have done it. It has just given me so many opportunities.”
One of the most iconic images of Dismaland features a police wagon in a pond with a rainbow framing the whole scene. Barry recalled: “On one visit I arrived in Weston and there was a rainbow across the whole of Weston and I was like I’ve got to park the car, make sure I don’t get a ticket, pay for it, walk through the door and cross my fingers that in ten minutes time the rainbow will still be there.
“I just thought stay cool. I went in, went to the far the side of the pond and looked back and the rainbow was over the whole thing – and that became the Pleasuredome which is one of my favourites. I don’t know if Banksy was standing next to me or whether he’d seen my picture because he gave all the Dismals who worked there a print – a drawing of the police van in the pond with the rainbow over the top of it. They were eventually worth about 10 grand.
“That felt like a really lucky moment. As a picture you just go ‘it’s one in a million.’ It wasn’t me thinking about it, it was just a given, when something happens. I was just very lucky - very lucky to be there at that time to capture that moment.”
That iconic image is one of many brilliantly captured by Barry ten years ago. You can see his famous Dismland collection at Weston Museum from September 13 - Novemeber 22nd, 2025. There will also be a book available for people to buy.
He said of the exhibition: "I am really happy with how it has all worked, I found a few images that I hadn’t even printed before to add to it, so it is a bit fresh too."
And when the exhibition closes...Barry would like to see the exhibition find a permanent home in Weston-super-Mare...maybe back at the Tropicana where it all started.
All pictures in this feature are from the Barry Cawston collection
