‘Play is the primal force which built our early selves, and can revivify and infuse our adult selves with a craving for action and innovation. Play is also an attempt at self-mastery, whether shaped from the outside by education or impelled by internal dreams of a better, more integrated self’
Play as imagination
I was surprised to read in Pat Kane’s The Play Ethic that the place of Victorian public swimming pools, sports halls and parks were brought in by authorities in order to maintain the physical health of the working classes, in turn ensuring the efficiency of the workforce. Although work and play are somewhat linked in my mind, I had never really put much thought into the idea that play creates better workers. In my logic, we work in order to afford to ‘play’. Kane’s chapters, split into simple headings covering all possible aspects of play made me consider Garden Book Club in many different ways, not only through content but as an art project on the whole. ‘Play as risk’ helped me consider the audience to which the work was directed and give more thought to the response the project would receive. ‘Rise of the Soulitarians’ examined the role of the internet with play, in turn helping me ask myself questions about the role of my online presence in terms of the work I am currently making. It sparked an interest in including more of an online platform for the newspaper after it had been distributed, in the form of a submission/response website for GBC.
Although I cannot directly make this cognitive comparison for definite, as a child I felt I had one of the strongest imaginations of my peers. I could play alone for hours, for days in fact without the aid of many props or inclusion of any other person. Growing up, I managed to keep hold of this imagination, applying it creatively, dreaming intensely and ensuring it was exercised in fear of it slipping away. I couldn’t imagine losing the ability to think beyond the real world, however hard it was forced upon me to become ‘grown up’. I remember the peer pressure of getting rid of toys, all of which had personalities, a voice and a heart to me. Choosing an academic path that would lead me to studying a creative subject ensured that my imagination was applied to art work, photography and later on, psychology. Never stifled, I was able to weave creative play into my everyday world. It is this imagination that helps me create collages; which in turn were born from a frustration of not being able to translate visions through a type of mundane photography. The world that has been created for GBC is entirely imagined, and intended to be lighthearted and playful. Having the chance and reason to extend my ideas into art helps me produce considered yet arbitrary choices that can be applied to existing theory and current debates within photography and art. A type of adult play I guess? The content of the work is playful- it asks the audience to see it for what it is and take them back to the imagination that work and the demands of life in general may have made them forget about temporarily. Play forms our young selves, and it is important to keep our older selves nourished with types of play accessed through projects such as GBC.
One of the notable play theorists, Johan Huizinga in his book Homo Ludens, argued that play creates a temporary world and an order of its own. Play creates this temporary world, and within the temporary world within the real life, it has the potential to distract. Garden Book Club creates this temporary world. A world where proportion and rationality don’t come into question, a place where plants can take on the roles of humans. These aspects ultimately result in a new form of expression or interpretation of a subject. Huizinga claims that physical and solid arts are not play. They are meant instead to help facilitate play or serve a representational function. In the pataphysical world of GBC however, physical art does not exist, only created characters and scenarios. He explains, “If therefore the play-element is to all appearances lacking in the execution of a work of plastic art, in the contemplation and enjoyment of it there is no scope for it whatever. For where there is no visible action there can be no play”.
Kane, P. (2004). The Play Ethic: A Manifesto for a Different Way of Living. Macmillan Press
Huizinga, J. (1949). Homo ludens: a study of the play-element in culture, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London.
Meg Wellington 