The Big Lunch, established by The Eden Project in 2009, is an annual event which encourages people to sit down with their neighbors for lunch on one day of the year, in a simple act of friendship and community.
Over 750,000 people took part in the inaugural event, but for 2010 The Big Lunch wanted to blow past that initial benchmark and record over 3 million participants in the nationwide July event.
Generating heavy media exposure in anticipation of the 2010 event was critical to achieving The Big Lunch's challenging goal of over 3 million participants. The Big Lunch called on Empire Entertainment Japan for a solution to their challenge. Empire enlisted the support of revolutionary 3D 'Trick Artist' Kurt Wenner to create an original artwork that would deliver the world of "The Big Lunch" to viewers and news outlets.
In designing this original work, Kurt Wenner placed emphasis on not only the painted artwork, but also the interactive element of the artwork, helping to underline the community-oriented theme that The Big Lunch represents. The final artwork featured a picnic scene where Londoners interacted with the floating food and other elements picture within the arwork.
Kurt Wenner completed the work at a live event at Aberdeen Road in London, and the public, press, and social media response to the work was immediate and overwhelming, with one outlet reporting, "Walking the streets can be incredibly dull. Walking the streets where artist Kurt Wenner has walked before you is generally anything but. Wenner 3D piece for The Big Lunch's kickoff is more than 16 feet by 16 feet and features the largest, most beautiful picnic lunch we've ever seen. This is one sidewalk we wouldn't mind tripping over."