The Fishin’ Hole is an interactive transaction and consumption experience based on memories of a childhood carnival game, fashioned as a simulacrum of fishing as a past time.
Armed with Temporary Fishin’ Licenses, prospective fishers rent fishin’ poles, create bait from play-doh and pipe cleaners, then cast their lines into the Fishin’ Hole hoping to hook a Beer Fish, a Water Fish, or a Candy Fish.
Below the waves, Park Rangers reward aesthetically successful bait with these prized consumption commodities until the Fishin’ Hole is fished to extinction. These transactions are purposefully inefficient in order to create moments of spontaneous community: the slow speed of the transactions focuses attention not on the acquisition of consumables, but on the gathered fishers in pursuit of the same, uniting strangers who wait together hoping for the best.
Further reading: a detailed assessment of the first instance of the Fishin’ Hole
Stranded! Galapagos Edition (September 2009)