At Play 1
17 April 2009 to 21 June 2009
South Hill Park
Bracknell, South East
www.southhillpark.org.uk
link to Google map
Susan Eyre: Restricted View (Summer), 2008, detail
Restricted View (Winter) invites viewers to look beyond the drab, un-romanticised reality of an urban winter day to discover a fantasy winter wonderland. Conjured from the collective subconscious, images from Christmas cards, advertising media, films and fiction are cobbled together to create a world that exists only in the imagination. Inauthentic yet familiar, this appealing landscape originates from an urge to invent a space that is a haven of beauty and harmony. This desire intimates a continuing nostalgia for a utopian idyll amid a fragmented and synthetic experience of nature where reality falls short of aspiration.
At Play explores ideas about play: making magic and being transformed, passing the time, messing about and making a mess, being yourself and pretending to be someone else, having secrets, making dens, belonging to gangs, creating rules and rituals, taking dares and chances, making and exploring small worlds. The exhibition re-creates in both adults and children a sense of what it is like to be a child at play. It encourages the viewer to gaze, to remember, to touch, to explore, to trust, to think, to laugh, to peer, to concentrate, to join in, to bend down, to take a chance ... and to play.
At Play 1 features work by Marco Cali, Marcin Gajewski, Rosie Gibson, Judy Goldhill & Sophie Loss, Susan Eyre, Cathy Hart & Esther Jervis, Aaron Head, Pernille Holm-Mercer, Ingrid Jensen, Philip Lee, Siobhan McAuley, Samantha Mogelonsky, Fedor Pavlov-Andreevich, Kay Sentance, Liz Whiteman Smith, John Tenniel and Cally Trench.
At Play 2 returns on 17 April - 20 June 2010 for a mansion-wide exhibition. At Play 1 and 2 are co-curated by Outi Remes and Cally Trench.
View the exhibition at YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPVdd8paaFg
Reviews: Tracey Jerome: www.a-n.co.uk/interface/reviews/single/535705
April Bateman: www.a-n.co.uk/interface/reviews/single/537517
Areej Abdi: www.a-n.co.uk/interface/reviews/single/537944
The exhibition includes live art events:
Philip Lee explores extreme forms of child's play and pleasure in doing something that an adult is not supposed to do. Lee's Sitting Slip is performed on 17 April 2009 during the opening reception, 6.00pm - 7.30pm.
Lee's performance is followed by Dead Radio, a performance by Fedor Pavlov-Andreevich on 17 April, 7.30pm - 8.30pm. The audience is invited to twiddle the artist's knobs making him physically switch from station to station - signing, reading news, quoting popular radio shows - all from the Soviet Union era.
Sandcastles by Kay Sentance in the Bracknell town centre and the arts centre during the exhibition and opening day. Sandcastles, far from a beach, aims to provide playful reminders and surprising chance encounters between the sandcastles and the public. The project is supported by Arts Development, Bracknell Forest Council.
