ART + PLAY

20:21 Gallery, Scunthorpe, 2011, a collaborative artwork with Kathryn Welford

Art + Play was a touring exhibition initiated by 20:21 Visual Arts Centre, Scunthorpe. Six artists were commissioned to make interactive artworks that could be grown-up art as well as a play object for children under 5.

Part of the project involved spending time in a nursery and a reception class. We were excited by the research focus of the project and the opportunity to watch how children imagine, invent, explore and create, and then to create new work in response.  We really liked the open-endedness of the brief, and the challenge of bringing together ‘Art’ and ‘Play’ as equal components within the creative process.

We became interested in how materials or environments affect how children behave; how certain ‘stimuli’ encourage careful, curious moments and how children behave in uncharacteristic or a-typical ways because of the materials or environments they are given to explore.  We wanted to challenge preconceptions of play and of what young children are believed to like or enjoy.  So, instead of creating something that was robust and solid, we created a delicate installation using sheets of silk chiffon and white ring reinforcements. We positioned the artwork thoughtfully to make it more likely that children explored it in a slow and careful way. We also provided sheets of white ring reinforcements so that children (and grown-ups) could spend time peeling and sticking stickers onto the chiffon, which requires careful concentration.

Titled ‘Uh-uh! A snowstorm! A swirling, whirling snowstorm.’ the artwork was developed taking the book ‘We’re Going on a Bear Hunt’ by Michael Rosen as a starting point. It uses light and translucency to create depth and a sense of being engulfed in gentle snowfall. The chiffon is responsive to even slight air currents and almost appears to breath as one walks past.

We also made a ‘Box of Delights’, that was used as part of the education team’s programme in schools. The box was covered in white ring-reinforcement stickers and contained a length of chiffon and an envelope of suggested play activities for teachers to use.