IT’S ALWAYS PLAYTIME
Inspired by the reimagining of the Young V&A archive, this project sought to deconstruct, reassemble and reclaim boundaries and authority over play by redesigning the confiscation cabinet from their collection. We aimed to critique how the museum as a whole acted as a sight of confiscation, restricting play and asserting authority over when, where and how play should occur. This project produced wooden play parts inspired by broken down Victorian style cabinets in the V&A. They are simplified and suggestive of its cabinet origins but never actually produce their original state. Participants are invited to remake the Confiscation Cabinets, reclaiming and subverting authority and authorship over the museum and boundaries of play through the endless possibilities of form, construction and deconstruction. This is further explored by taking the cabinet out of the interior of the museum, placing these objects in territories that are otherwise ‘out of bounds’ for play to occur, questioning restrictive play. The parts made are envisioned to be duplicated in order to make larger structures for endless possibilities. We imagine our cabinet play parts to the constantly moving and evolving, being taken to new spaces, creating new collaborations and further deconstructing the boundaries of play.
This manifesto of the project:
1. The expanding and evolving playground
The playground is no longer a fixed defined space. It is an expansive territory that spills out into wider landscapes of life, provoking questions of play possibility and restriction.
2. Unprescribed play
Participators have their own agency within play, they are able to self-govern, create, destroy and imagine their own playground. Our philosophy means to produce mouldable states of play to investigate the extensive breadths of imagination.
3. Collaboration
Play will facilitate didactic relations through an equal standing and exchange of knowledge and ideas. We deconstruct authority over play and facilitate intergenerational collaboration that foregrounds childhood as a notion which isn’t bound by a development timeline but rather, something that should be nurtured and exercised at all ages.
