The Playground Project (Baltic Gateshead)

Today I visited the Baltic art gallery in Gateshead with my children. I had particularly taken them to see the Playground Project.

This is an interactive piece of art that children and adults can climb and play in. The exhibition had a lot of information about how the concept of a playground has changed over the years.

I had not realised that some playground had been developed by artists in the past.

What really struck me was reading about how safety policies have changed the types of playground that children play in and the idea that playgrounds are no longer a place to learn and experiment.

What was particularly powerful was that while I read this information and looked at pictures, my children were playing. And actually the play was different to our usual parks, and I was surprised to find myself worrying about them hurting themselves or getting lost/taken away/snatched when I couldn't see them in the big tubes.

I found my response very surprising and awareness raising about our attitudes now, and made me think about how frightened parents are now to give their children lots of freedom. I think that a lot of this is to do with the media and the constant bombardment of information about terrible things that can happen.

I thought that this exhibition was a very clever example of the power of involving the viewer in art work, and of not telling them how to feel about it but allowing them to really feel it.

#Exhibition