Bristol Breakfasts is a new fortnightly feature in which Bristol Culture editor Martin Booth interviews some of the city’s leading cultural figures, while an illustrator paints a portrait of the interviewee as the breakfast takes place. Artist Luke Jerram is the first subject, with illustrations by Harry Morgan.

As most of Bristol attempts to jump headfirst down the water slide coming to Park Street on May 4, we might forget that it is a work of art by the same Bristol artist who gave cities across the world pianos to play and cast his own daughter as a pixellated sculpture at Temple Meads.

Luke Jerram lives in Southville. His studio is in Spike Island but his office overlooks Park Street and it was here during the heatwave in the middle of last summer that the idea for a water slide came to him.

“Loads of us have ideas. But it’s important that those ideas that happen on a Friday night in the pub, on a Monday morning you don’t forget about them and you say that you can actually do this,” Jerram explains.

The problem now is how to manage unprecedented expectations of this brilliantly simple idea, as the 90-metre slide will only be able to be slid down by a few hundred people during the course of the day.

Less than £800 remains to be raised to make the project a reality. Jerram could have raised that in an instant, and has already revealed that he has been contacted by multinationals such as Speedo and Red Bull who have offered big money sponsorship for the unique city centre event.

“I hope we can do it without splattering logos everywhere though. And I don’t want to sell fizzy drinks to anybody.”

Unusually for an artwork by Jerram, the slide will also not be toured, unlike his Play Me, I’m Yours street pianos which have been installed in 43 cities across the world since 2008.

Instead, for a £50 donation to Bristol charity Frank Water, the instructions will be made available to download as a PDF with all the components available to buy off-the-shelf so anybody who wants to make it happen in their own town or city can.

Such ease of construction is not the same as other Jerram projects, several of which were created in partnership with some of the people who work at the Watershed, which is where he has chosen to meet for breakfast , or more accurately elevenses.

Sky Orchestra, a performance artwork involving seven hot air balloons with speakers attached, was created thanks to the Pervasive Media Studio; while Maya, his sculpture next to Temple Meads platform three, was part of Bristol Temple Quarter commissions coordinated by the Watershed, Knowle West Media Centre and MAYK.

“I’m surprised she’s still there,” Jerram admits, soon finishing his green tea and plain flapjack. “My five-year-old son wonders when I’ll be making one of him as well.”

The sculpture of his daughter is certainly art. It is tangible. It can be seen and touched. Yet the slide is something different. Is it even art?

“Just because I’m an artist, doesn’t necessarily make it art,” Jerram answers. “If an accountant had come up with the idea of a slide, is it therefore not an artwork?”

As an artist, Jerram has been very successful and is unusually candid about how he makes a living, estimating that about one third of his income comes from America, one third from Europe and one third from the rest of the world, with Bristol itself contributing about five per cent.

“Changing people’s lives and changing the cultural landscape,” is Jerram’s considered response to my question on what makes him most satisfied with his life work so far.

“There have been people across the world who have met for the first time at one of my pianos, fell in love and are now married. One couple even had a street piano at their wedding.”

Jerram also tells the story of an Italian musician who arrived off the Eurostar at St Pancras and played the street piano there every day for a month until one day he got a record deal, and other stories of people who had never seen a piano before the project came to their city.

“The pianos are blank canvasses; it’s an opportunity for people to express themselves and share their creativity.

“And the slide is a bit like that as well. The slide will only come into being, it will only come alive, when someone’s on it, with the first person going down the slide being the performer, and the people watching being the spectators.

“Without people, the slide doesn’t really exist. And remember, it’s just a few hay bales, some bits of tarpaulin and gravity.”

Watershed,1 Canon’s Road, Bristol

Tel: 0117 927 6444

1 Green tea: £1.20

1 Machiato: £1.90

1 Flapjack: £2.20

Total: £5.30

Harry Morgan is a third year illustration student at UWE. To view more of his work, visit www.cargocollective.com/harrymorganillustration