It’s one of the iconic images of summer: taking a backpack or hamper full of tasty meats, cheeses, fruits and drinks to a scenic spot, placing a brightly coloured blanket on the ground and having yourself a delicious meal as you watch the world go by. Now, a small town in Switzerland has taken the idea of lunching alfresco and supersized it by decorating their town with a 10.000 square-metre picnic blanket.
On September 10, the residents of Herisau, Canton Aargau, awoke to see that the centre of their town had been decorated with a brightly coloured picnic blanket as part of the latest edition of the “Bignik”. The event consists of “a picnic towel that grows every year: by and for the entire population, as a vision consisting of exactly as many towels as the region has residents”, Bignik explains on its website.
This year, 12.000 individual picnic blankets were laid out in sequence, covering the entirety of the town centre. Pictures taken from above show the unmistakable red and white chequered pattern so synonymous with the picnics of yesteryear.
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“It was a perfect day,” noted Karin Jung, board member of the Herisauer Dorfbild Foundation. Speaking to 20 Minuten, she said that the great weather on the day allowed volunteers to lay out 10.000 square metres worth of blankets. The blankets themselves are donations from the general public.
Bignik itself was founded by performance artists Frank and Patrik Riklin, who wanted to highlight the region between the Swiss mountains, St. Gallen, Appenzell and the banks of Lake Constance through practical performance art.
Luckily, for those who missed the event, this won’t be the last time we’ll see giant picnic blankets in Switzerland: organisers expect to lay a blanket the size of 100 football fields by 2040.