Work in Progress: Reflective Play with 'Play Beyond Playgrounds'
On 30 November and 1 December 2023, ART/PLAY/RISK an Australian Research Council (ARC) project held a symposium in collaboration with the Australian design studio ASPECT, titled, Play Beyond Playgrounds. I was invited by Lead Researcher Dr Sanné Mestrom and Research Assistant Nadia Odlum to engage with the symposium as a Participant Researcher. I immersed myself in the audience and recorded accidental moments of art, play and risk, which I term 'leaky knowledge' - defined as unexpected learnings that emerge organically through the set conditions. I also mapped the speaker's presentations building new relationships between words and concepts on the page.
Play Beyond Playgrounds invited audiences to imagine a city where play was not confined to traditional playgrounds but permeated every corner of the urban landscape. Together, we reflected on how art, play and risk can create a vibrant and dynamic environment that encourages creativity, social connection, and resilience. Typically, conventional playgrounds of today offer limited scope for exploration and growth, with children often following predictable paths, devoid of challenge, cooperation or risk-taking opportunities, so vital to their health and development.
ART/PLAY/RISK believes in transcending these limitations by embracing an interdisciplinary approach that brings diverse knowledges together to reimagine the urban environment, with public art and bespoke design as central players. In Play Beyond Playgrounds, Mestrom and Odlum, together, with ASPECT Studios, challenged the status quo of urban play, asking the crucial questions: How can we harness the transformative power of play in public life to create better future cities, empowering individuals and communities? And what role can public art and design play in this vital transformation?
This two-day symposium was designed to explore the need for play-beyond-playgrounds in our increasingly high-density cities.
Comprised of keynotes, panel discussions, workshops and site visits this dynamic interdisciplinary event brought together experts from public art, urban planning, landscape architecture, academia, child development, and urbanism to collaborate, converse, grapple and play.
