A seaside town hopes a monster piece of public art made from an old North Sea oil rig will boost visitors
See Monster will tower above the seafront in Weston-super-Mare this summer and could leave tourists and residents divided
It is fair to say that the fate of disused oil rigs is not very often considered. Usually, when rigs come to the end of their working lives, they are chopped up into pieces and taken to the nearest scrap yard – ashes to ashes; metal to metal.
However, one North Sea oil rig is going on a different journey. In a world-first, a North Sea offshore oil platform will be repurposed as a public art installation, See Monster, and positioned off the seafront at Weston-super-Mare in Somerset.
Some 200,000 visitors are expected to climb on board the oil rig, situated behind Weston’s iconic Tropicana building, this summer. The new public art installation is part of Unboxed: Creativity in the UK – a free festival featuring 10 large-scale public art projects around the UK.
Pic:How See Monster in Weston-Super-Mare will look (Photo: Newsubstance)
