(Picture by Michaela Edwards.)
Surely one of the best ways to spend the long evenings of Summer is to sit outside in a park and watch the trees and the lakes as they gradually disappear into twilight. If you can lounge in a deckchair to do so, well, all the better; and if the deckchair’s designed by a “celebrity artist” then there’s certainly no harm in that.
Looking after a park can take a lot of time, and effort, and money. Last summer, the Royal Parks Foundation (which takes care of St James’ Park, Green Park, Hyde Park, Kensington Gardens, Richmond Park, Greenwich Park, Regent’s Park, Bushy Park and Brompton Cemetery) raised money through Deckchair Dreams, in which “celebrity artists” designed deckchairs that were made available for hire across several of the Royal Parks (not the cemetery; like many cemeteries, Brompton does not provide facilities for deckchair hire).
This year they’re doing it again, with designers ranging from Damien Hirst to Jacqueline Wilson. Other contributors come from “the worlds of art, origami, music, food, poetry and design” (though hopefully the chairs themselves won’t be made from origami or food). They cost £2 to hire for four hours, if you just want to sit down in a park; if you want to own one yourself, there are also limited-edition sales of the chairs at £83 each, which is where a lot of the money raised by the Foundation will come from.
You can get a look at the designs at the project’s web page. To us the most beguiling ones tend to come from the contributors whose credentials lean to the “designer” or “artist” side of the “celebrity artist” equation, rather than the “celebrity” side: David Lennon’s pastoral swing, Michaela Edwards’ silhouetted branches, and Hirst’s butterflies are particularly charming.
Deckchair Dreams: Regent’s Park, Hyde Park, St James’s Park and Green Park. £2 for 4 hours.
