Subway

The Platform subway for my Play Pins exhibition on a Wednesday evening in September. A really interesting and public space to work with. And kind of large! So many boxes to fill - must say I freaked out a little...

Play Pins: Title box

The next installment from one half of The Playground Project, this exhibition takes a look at moments of adult play through design.

Over the past few years I’ve been keeping a record of moments of play in my life, in everyday situations I see and from stories I hear from others. The more I’ve thought about the ways that adults play, the more infinite these ways seem. Childhood, games, sport, sex, laughter, fantasy, ingenuity, creativity, risk, syncopation, repetition, rehearsal…the list goes on. My aim then, has become more about igniting the imagination of individual play.

For this exhibition I chose a number of images that signify the different ways I have observed adults play. An experiment in how clothing, textiles, image and object can sit playfully. It is not just a public display of playfulness, it is a reminder to notice and enjoy those bliss bits in your day.

How do you play? Is it sensation or scenario? Solitary or surrounded? The silver lining or the lining of a jacket? Play up. Play on. Play ball.

Play Pins: Photo wall

Tell you a secret...

Play Pins: PLAY ALONG

The air just starting to get warm.

Play Pins: PLAY AROUND

Queuing out front
you can hear the music,
feel your stomach,
hips start moving.
Can feel the pull
to get lost in rhythm.

Play Pins: PLAY OUT

The washing line hangs over the balcony. When the wind blows things off we fish them back with a fishing rod. It works surprisingly well.

Play Pins: PLAY OFF

Once there was a man at a conference. A very important man. Very important conference. But there was this hill. So green was the grass that he was compelled to roll down to the bottom. Brushing his knees off, he greeted his colleague.

Play Pins: PLAY FAST

Nothing beats good old fashioned adrenaline.

Play Pins: PLAY BACK

This girl I know really knows how to whistle.
I mean really. Every note. Plus the warbles.

Play Pins: PLAY DOWN

So I got in the bath with my clothes on to join you.

Play Pins: PLAY UP

I’ll tease you.
You’ll say no when you mean
yes.
I’ll please you.
You’ll be misty,
but alive.
I’ll see you.
Your eyes and mine.
The reaching.

Play Pins: PLAY WITH

That smile in the eyes. Come dance with me.

Play Pins: PLAY ON

We stopped on the stairs and sang the whole song together.

Play Pins: PLAY AT

Greeted, you enter a shallow room with a ceiling 2 levels high, on the walls are pictures of people playing, some obscured behind tiny sliding doors. Through a doorway, the next room is a 360 projection of an outside space (the sky, the grass, the beach) with a single chair in the centre. Another doorway and the room is getting smaller, a white space with many pens hanging, waiting for you to add your writing to the walls. As the spaces get smaller along the ramp, you pass through a sensory melange – textures and sounds – to ready you for play. The rooms end and you find yourself overlooking a large space in the round. The ramp you are on winds its way around the edge till it reaches a top centre stage where a band is playing. Along the ramp, people are climbing up and down poles/nets. Further on someone is being winched up by three people on stationary bikes. Under the centre platform are two long swings. To the side is a spiral staircase and a slide to the bottom level. There are four rooms underneath the spiral ramp, inhabited by performers – the dancing room (empty with a dress up box), the boudoire (a four-poster bed), the cardboard box (a card table and chairs) and the walk-in wardrobe (a single light globe with polaroids of people all over the walls). The centre area on the bottom level has a mound in one corner and a chequered dancing floor. There are hammocks and beanbags and old-fashioned chairs around the edges. From below you can see new people enter the space and winding around the ramp above you. You stay a while, a short performance happens in the central space. To exit you are led past the side of the swings and out into the night…

Platform Exhibition Opening

PLAY PINS - How do you play?

The next instalment from one half of The Playground Project, this exhibition takes a look at moments of adult play through design.

Over the past few years I’ve been keeping a record of moments of play in my life, in everyday situations I see and from stories I hear from others. The more I’ve thought about the ways that adults play, the more infinite these ways seem. Childhood, games, sport, sex, laughter, fantasy, ingenuity, creativity, risk, syncopation, repetition, rehearsal…the list goes on. My aim then, has become more about igniting the imagination of individual play.

For this exhibition I chose a number of images that signify the different ways I have observed adults play. An experiment in how clothing, textiles, image and object can sit playfully. It is not just a public display of playfulness, it is a reminder to notice and enjoy those bliss bits in your day.

How do you play? Is it sensation or scenario? Solitary or surrounded? The silver lining or the lining of a jacket? Play up. Play on. Play ball.