Playground

Unit 3, Leeds Shopping Plaza, Ground Floor
Preview event : 11th March 2010 5-7pm Exhibition runs from 5th – 18th March 2010



Sameeha Akudi, Sarah Baumann, Gaia Rosenberg-Colorni, Tania Flewitt, Aoife Flynn, Alice Lea, Andy Nizinskyj, James Noonan, Laura Ruehl and Hannah Parker-Smith.

An exhibition of playful works including a teddy bears picnic, treacle, activity books, a mood swing, animal costumes and jigsaws.



As Johan Huizinga explored in his book ‘Homo Ludens’ of 1955, if there can be said to be a common trait that persists through our culture it is the desire to play. Play is the product of curiosity and imagination as well as a gateway to learning through exploration and familiarisation.

In ‘Playground,’ ten artists investigate the notion of play within art. Following an historical urge – traceable from Dada through Fluxus and into relational practitioners of the 1990s – to reverse the perceived rules of ‘conventional’ contemplative art, in this exhibition “Please do not touch the artwork” is rewritten as “Please DO play with the art”. ‘Playground’ invites experimentation and curiosity in place of passive appreciation and exclusivity. The viewer is warmly invited to participate in the display and organisation of the show, and in so doing help re-imagine the realm of art-work as a world of art-play.

Rules of the Playground are…



The artists will be in the space 9am - 5pm Friday 5th and Saturday 6th March, and 11am - 5pm Sunday 7th March. During these three days you are invited to watch the exhibition change and evolve and you are also encouraged to get involved in the curatorial playground!