Magical Play

Play Passages came to life on Monday afternoon and it was magical—just what I pictured, but different of course because kids will always play in interesting, surprising, and beautiful ways. I created a space with the fabric images of the play memories, wood, bamboo and rope, but the kids brought it to life. For the adults in attendance, listening to the immersive play memories while watching the children, it was a good reminder of the importance of keeping in touch with play far beyond childhood.

I wanted to share some of the beautiful photos that came out of the event taken by my friend and gifted photographer Melanie Gordon, as well as a link to all of the final images and audio stories in the project, which you can view and listen to here.

Make sure to listen with headphones to get the full immersive experience, and if you have a chance, listen to them while you watch children play. Part of the fun is having the sounds in the stories and the sounds in real life bleed into each other.

The photo above is of my daughter—both of my kids and their friends played for hours in the installation. She is 9, almost 10. I felt immense joy seeing everything come together after thinking about the idea for many years, and developing it for a year and a half. She only has a couple of more years of childhood; I feel grateful I was able to make this project while she still wanted to play in it. But of course, I hope she never stops playing. I certainly haven’t.

Rhythms of Play

I find my art practice has its own rhythms, and I’m not always great at continuing to be in touch with people to keep them up with what’s happening. It’s especially like this when I’m starting new projects. I need to go into myself, and I find it hard to share publicly and be ‘out there’ at the same time that I’m incubating a new idea. Twyla Tharp, the choreographer, calls this “scratching”, and I really like that. It’s feels like I’m sniffing around, looking, listening, picking up things in the culture and that are on my mind, but that I don’t have exact questions for yet or an artistic form. It can be an uncomfortable place to be, but I’ve gotten better at being there, and sitting with that feeling of not knowing what’s next. Because I know eventually there will be movement, as long as I keep moving forward with curiosity. It’s definitely a type of play, and I’m getting better at it the more I allow myself to practice it.

I think this sense of movement, rhythms, and play can apply to many of us, no matter what is occupying our day to day. How do we move forward with curiosity in our lives, in the midst of what can often feel like the daily grind? It feels crucial for me; this sense of curiosity, continually pushing oneself, even a little bit, to do something new, to let oneself play.

I’m in a waiting period with Play Passages right now too (waiting to hear about a number of grants), and I’m “scratching” another new project that I can’t share yet. I hope to have more news to share soon. 

Meanwhile, how are you moving forward with curiosity and play in your daily lives? What are your creative rhythms?

Where did you play as a child?

I loved playing outdoors when I was a kid. This is a photo of me from when I was 6. You gotta love the jean leisure suit: 

I remember that day, exploring in the woods and wading in the river on a day trip to a neighboring town with my parents. And it was fun. But when I started looking for a photo of myself for this post, I realized that of course I don’t have photos of the hundreds of other times I played outside, because I was with my friends, and there usually were no adults around.

And that was even more fun.

There's no doubt that some of my most joyful childhood memories are of playing outdoors, when I created lots of imaginary worlds and adventures away from the watchful eyes of adults.

There have been many inspirations for Play Passages, but one of the primary ones is that since I had kids (I have two of them, they’re 8 and 5), I’ve became increasingly frustrated that it’s so difficult to give them the same freedoms and play opportunities that I had. And I don’t think it needs to be that way.

Fear in many forms seems to have trumped remembering what it felt like to really play, to take risks, to sometimes get hurt, to have a sense of wonder and possibility that wasn’t necessarily “productive”.

I found myself wondering what would happen if I started asking people to remember, what stories would come up? And if I asked them to play a little bit, take a small artistic risk, what would that process be like for people?

It’s not just about nostalgia (although of course thinking back on our childhood play can be very nostalgic). I don’t want to look at childhood play through rose-colored glasses—play is complex and it isn’t always a positive experience. 

I’m just extremely curious about so many things: what are our most vivid memories of playing outside and why do we remember them? What is the relationship between how we played as children and who we became as adults? How do we stay in touch with play over the course of our lives? And how do we give those same opportunities to our children?

I’m hoping this project will spark some of those conversations. And as usual, I’m drawn to making work anchored by a sense of place. I think asking about where we played as kids might lead to some interesting discoveries. (Side note: I also had many amazing play experiences indoors of course, but it’s the outdoor play that kids seem more deprived of, so I’m focusing on that for now).

I want you to start thinking about your play memories. If you can steal some time over the weekend, take a walk by yourself and think back to your childhood. Where and how did you play? With whom? How did it feel at the time? And how does it feel to look back on it now?

I’m really excited to see where this goes.

When was the last time you played?

As adults, how often do we have the opportunity to play? When was the last time you really let go, and did something creatively risky without a care about what came next?

That’s part of what Play Passages is about. In case you missed it, Play Passages is my new community art project that transforms people’s memories of childhood free play into art, and invites people to reconnect with playing a little in the process.

The first step in my research is to ask people to think back and remember a vivid outdoor play memory from childhood. It could be a specific story or just general memories of where and how you played, and with whom. And I’m also very curious about how it feels to look back on those memories. People write their stories down, and then comes the part where you get to play yourselves.

I tell people to draw a map of where they played with their eyes closed.

Yes, you read that right. Most people do a double take. I must be kidding, right? It sounds harder, at first glance. 

But here’s the amazing part—it’s actually easier for many people.

Up to a certain point as children, we all drew. And then many of us got the message that we were terrible at it, and stopped. 

Drawing with our eyes closed is a great way to short-circuit that inner critic. And what’s interesting is that even with our eyes closed, when we’re asked to draw a memory, our hands move smoothly over the page—we remember where everything was quite clearly and don’t need to look. And most importantly, it’s fun to let go, to see what comes out, to have that element of surprise when we open our eyes.

After making the drawing, then people are allowed to go nuts using watercolors (with their eyes open) to color in and flesh out their map however they want.

Ras Tanura Beach, Raymond Shih, 2017

This watercolor above was made by participant Raymond Shih; it’s his memory map of Ras Tanura, a beach in Saudi Arabia that helped ease his loneliness after moving from Toronto when he was 12.

Raymond is one of many people who contributed stories to Play Passages during EarthDay Canada’s pop-up adventure playground at the Toronto Archives, where I set up shop in late May.

You’ll be able to hear Raymond’s whole story, how he felt about the experience, and see how I used it as inspiration for a photograph very soon.

And start thinking back to your own childhoods! I can’t wait to hear your stories.

Let's Play!

As some of you know, I’ve been somewhat obsessed for the past few years with how much children’s play has changed since I was a kid. For a variety of reasons, the current North American culture doesn’t allow most kids the freedom, risk taking, and unsupervised play that many of us had growing up. I’m interested in asking questions and making work that challenges the assumptions that kids free play isn’t that important, or that they aren’t capable of increased responsibility or autonomy. 

At the same time, I’m also really curious about play across our lifetimes. How does the way we played as children affect us now? What does it mean for us to play as adults? 

This project is so new it doesn’t even have a proper title yet! I’m calling it The Play Memory Project for now. And I’m starting with collecting people’s outdoor childhood play memories, through writing, drawing, and audio. 

I’ll be gathering these stories in a variety of ways, starting with an event this weekend in Toronto. I’ve partnered with EarthDay Canada on the project; among many other initiatives to promote free play, they run pop-up adventure playgrounds in and around the Toronto area as part of their EarthPlay program. EarthPlay bring a variety of loose parts (tires, ropes, tarps, boxes etc.) to a park and then the kids play to their hearts content, with minimal adult interference. 

EarthPlay is running a pop-up playground this Saturday, May 27th, as part of the Doors Open Festival at the City of Toronto Archives, which is on Spadina Avenue just north of Dupont in Toronto. I’ll be there from 12-4pm, collecting play memories and play memory maps from anyone who wants to come by and contribute theirs. (The Archives are also showing an exhibit called “From Streets to Playgrounds: Representing Children in Early 20th Century Toronto” that sounds fascinating). If you have kids, trust me, they will have a blast while you relax and make art and share stories with me!

This is just the beginning, I have big plans for what will happen to the materials I gather that I can’t share yet. Meanwhile, I’ll be doing more events with EarthPlay this summer and opening up submissions online later in June. I want play memory stories from all over the world! I’m also very open to partnerships with other play organizations, so feel free to contact me if you think we would be a good fit. 

I can’t wait to show you some of the work and stories coming out of the project, and share the details of the process; I’m trying a lot of new things and getting out of my comfort zone. Which is exactly as it should be for a project about play and risk.