Play for All: Freedom, Creativity and Connection at Incinerator Gallery’s New Exhibition

This winter, The Playground Project arrives at Incinerator Gallery, in Melbourne’s inner north-west, making its southern hemisphere debut after a 10-year journey through Europe and North America. The travelling exhibition – which features playable sculptures, public art, photography, video and archival materials – unpacks 150 years of playground design history from around the world.

“You can really see the playground as a mirror of social development,” says guest curator Gabriela Burkhalter, the political scientist and urban planner who first set up The Playground Project in Zurich.

“In the early 1900s, it was more of a social experiment to control children and to stop them moving through the streets independently, which grown-ups didn’t approve of,” she says. “Then it shifted into more of an educational thing, especially in Scandinavian countries. They saw that children needed to play with natural objects like sand and water, which helped them develop a relationship to nature. That gave a new impetus into this concept of a ‘playground’. It moved from this very controlling space to a more creative space.

“In the exhibition, I try to show that evolution over time.”

At Incinerator Gallery, the exhibits take over spaces within and surrounding the gallery, with the aim of inspiring kids, teens and adults alike.

“We have one sculpture in the exhibition called The Lozziwurm,” Burkhalter says. She’s referring to a bright, tubular play sculpture designed in 1972 by Swiss artist Yvan Pestalozzi, which is now in commercial production and has been permanently acquired by Incinerator Gallery. “It’s a huge polyester worm with holes where you can go in and out, and you can hide and chase each other. Everywhere it goes, children understand in one second how it works. It doesn’t depend on where they’re from or how old they are. It’s always a pleasure to see that.”

Moonee Valley City Council’s head of visual and public art, Jade Niklai, first saw the piece when it arrived in Zurich in 2016, and her then six-year-old insisted on returning to the gallery “three times in 36 hours” to play in it. “There’s nothing digital or complicated about The Lozziwurm, but it’s fascinating. Kids just take to the shape – going in and out, upside-down, on top, below.”

The Australian iteration of The Playground Project – presented at Incinerator Gallery with exhibition design by Melbourne’s BoardGrove Architects – has been designed to be even more interactive. “The exhibition has often been hosted in a ‘white cube’ gallery space,” says Burkhalter. “Whereas now it’s in a very fragmented space – it’s a little bit like a play sculpture itself. I’m curious to see how people will move through it.”

During the exhibition, visitors will find playable components throughout the gallery’s three main spaces – including a modernist-inspired playground created by London-based Australian artist Simon Terrill in collaboration with UK design collective Assemble. The Brutalist Playground uses reconstituted recycled foam to reimagine concrete and steel play structures from postwar UK housing estates. Elsewhere, there are works by artist Emily Floyd and designer Mary Featherston AM, whose longstanding creative practices explore childhood and learning, as well as a new playable public art commission by Trawoolway multidisciplinary artist Edwina Green. The sculpture is connected to The Playground Project Melbourne’s themes of childhood, play, togetherness and renewal, and inspired by more than 65,000 years of play on Wurundjeri Woi-Wurrung Country. After the exhibition, the artwork will be permanently installed along the Maribyrnong River, on the traditional lands of the Wurundjeri Woi-Wurrung people.

When asked if there have been any especially surprising or memorable moments from the travelling exhibition so far, Burkhalter smiles. “It’s really nice to see older kids, who are 12 to 14 years old, engage with The Lozziwurm. They’re not ashamed or thinking ‘Oh, that’s for little kids.’ They respond really well.” There can be a sense of liberation for kids who engage with the ’wurm, she says. “Even small kids will try to hide or find out ‘How does this work?’ Parents are often a bit surprised, because the children disappear suddenly and they can’t give orders anymore or control them. That’s always a nice moment.”

Niklai is excited to see how the gallery – originally a recycling facility designed by renowned Prairie School architects Walter Burley Griffin and Marion Mahony Griffin – will be transformed. “It’s going to be a bit mad because there’ll be lots of kids running around, that’s exactly what we’re currently missing,” she says. “We’re an old factory, so we need a bit more fun and joy in the space.”

According to Burkhalter, the last truly experimental play sculptures were created between the 1940s and the 1970s, which she considers the golden age of playgrounds. “Playground equipment could be very sculptural, like an art sculpture or an Earth topography model. Different forms were tested out, with recycled materials like rope or industrial leftovers. At a certain point, it wasn’t possible to make equipment or devices like this for playgrounds anymore, for safety reasons,” she says. Lacking funding for maintenance, playgrounds fell into disrepair and became hazardous. “Unfortunately, this slowed down innovation and how different playground groups – activists, artists or citizens – could contribute.”

“Something that shocked me [when reading Burkhalter’s research] is the commercialisation of childhood, and regulating children’s free time so that they don’t actually have any space left to just play,” says Niklai. She wonders if Australia is still stuck in that over-regulated phase of the 1980s, where screens seem safer than slides or digging in dirt.

The Playground Project Melbourne aims to bring back that sense of freedom. “We’re looking to bring back that possibility and show visitors what could happen,” Burkhalter says. “A parent might say, ‘I’d never let my kid go down this type of slide!’ But that’s also what attracted me to the subject matter in the first place – that little bit of craziness and experimentation we can find inside playgrounds.”

The Playground Project Melbourne is open from Saturday June 28 to Sunday October 12. Kids under 12 go free, and tickets for parents and guardians are $10–$25. Find more information and book at incineratorgallery.com.au.

This article is produced by Broadsheet in partnership with Moonee Valley City Council.