Kurt Perschke's RedBall Project Takes Giant Ball On World Tour

Giant Red Ball Goes On World Tour
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Have YOU seen this ball?

This is the crazy art project that is going ballistic - placing a huge squishy 15ft red ball into tight spaces.

The inflatable vinyl ball goes across the world, squeezed it into alleyways, bus shelters, bridge arches and underpasses to the curiosity of passers by.

The brainchild of New York artist Kurt Perschke, he first set the ball rolling in 2001 by inviting suggestions of where to place the ball.

Millions have now viewed it in Barcelona, St. Louis, Portland, Arizona, Chicago, Toronto, Taipei and Abu Dhabi over the past 11 years.

Two years ago it stunned people on the streets of Norwich after it was squeezed into the city's narrow medieval streets and passageways - including two schoolboys who attempted to hurl themselves at it.

Kurt says the ball has fascinated the imaginations of children and adults who still suggest locations to place the ball when it arrives in their city or town.

He said: "The project is all about the ball, people are drawn by the spectacle of it.

"Through the RedBall Project I utilize my opportunity as an artist to be a catalyst for new encounters within the everyday.

"Through the magnetic, playful, and charismatic nature of the RedBall the work is able to access the imagination embedded in all of us.

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"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. It opens a doorway to imagine what if?

"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.

"I have witnessed it across continents, diverse age spans, cultures, and languages, always issuing an invitation.

"That invitation to engage, to collectively imagine, is the true essence of the RedBall Project.

"The larger arc of the project is how each city responds to that invitation and, over time, what the developing story reveals about our individual and cultural imagination."

The ball returns to tour the UK starting in Torbay on June 2 before heading to Plymouth, Exeter and Weymouth before finishing on London's South Bank on June 27.