This weekend I returned from a fascinating and intense week with the kids in London. As I told Jelle and Lieke about the giant slide sculpture "Test-side" of Carsten Höller, we had to visit Tate Modern. Children don't need the artists' explanation of the project to get enthusiast: just the information "giant slide" and "you are allowed to use it" is enough. To be honest: I don't need much more either...But as I am supposed to be a cultural interested adult, I read the interview in which Carsten Höller explains his intentions with this piece of art. A short quote:
…Slides are also a device for experiencing an emotional state that is a unique condition somewhere between delight and madness. It was described in the fifties by the French writer Roger Callois as “a kind of voluptuous panic upon an otherwise lucid mind”…
Isn’t that a beautiful description of an emotion? And as this is a kayak-blog: isn’t it the perfect description of the feeling you get when your 5 meter-plus seakayak catches a surf…?
Alas: we didn’t reach this emotional state in Tate Modern: instead we got another experience. We were introduced to the “fine British Art of queuing”. Tate Modern was overcrowded, you had to queue for hours to get a timed ticked for one ride later that day in the higher slides. Only the lower slides were direct accessible: queuing an hour for one ride of 5 meters high was enough for the kids (and for me).
Btw: Tate Modern sure is worth a visit, with or without sliding!
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