things to do to make your day better as you walk past these hoardings

Just prior to this commission I made DO IT! a series of signs that are currently located inside and outside South Hill Park Berkshire, as part of At Play (2) curated by Outi Remes and Cally Trench.

The aim of the signs is to address the viewer / reader directly with an action to follow, in the same way that the texts on the hoarding will do.

At the opening of At Play (2) I led visitors on a tour of the signs, and invited people to follow each instruction.

At the sign that says Sing Your Favourite Song To the Birds, a small girl said her favourite song was Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, and so children and adults sang this song to the birds in the tree overhead.

At Play included work by Mary Anderson, Emily Bailey, Jackie Berridge, Tineke Bruijnzeels, Sean Caves, Felicity Clarke, Stephen Conning, Sergio Cruz, Alex Dewart, Caitriona Dunnett, Helen Edling, Helen Flanagan, James R. Ford, Clara Garcia Fraile, Linda Francis, Freya Gabie, Francesca Galeazzi, Amy Galloway, Judy Goldhill, Paul Greco, Lesley Halliwell, David Hockney, Clare Johnson, Daniel Lehan, Katy Merrington, Arnaud Moinet, Elizabeth Murton, Nicola Pomery, Joanna Salter, Kay Sentance, Cally Trench, Nick Trench, Imogen Welch, and Mary Yacoob.

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Here is a video of the hoarding.

At times the hoarding seems very very very long, but thankfully its NEVER as long as I imagine it to be.

I have now started to take notice of other building site hoardings that I see as I make my way around London – as blank canvasses ripe for texts.

On Wednesday I saw one being constructed in Mile End – something beautiful about the sheets of plywood. Also these ‘floating’ rectangles on a wall right by the South London Gallery, immediately took my eye.

Thursday afternoon I went to Brodie and Middleton and bought brushes, and started to think about how I could vary the size of the text, that the text should be as ‘playful’ as possible – to reflect the ‘free play’ ethos at the playground.

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This week was spent at the South London Gallery working out, and practising how I will write the text – what brushes to use, the thickness of the paint, could I write letters without making paint drips, are paint drips OK, and what size will the text need to be to be visible from a distance ?

Making each letter separate feels much better. I think it will make the text clearer and increase flexibility as to how I compose the text on the hoarding, rather than using a joined up handwriting style, which I normally use for A3 Hand Drawn & Quartered, a monthly poster style publication that I produce and distribute in galleries and venues in London.

A3 features work by a single artist (or several artists around a particular theme) on one side, and a slogan of mine on the other. Contributors to A4 so far include Elaine Arkell, Darren Van Asten, Urban Bear, Matt Blackler, Chloe Copper, Calum F. Kerr, Caroline Gregory, Kelly Large, less, Joanna McCormick, Frog Morris, Hannah Simmons, Mr Solo, Veronika Spierenburg, Ana Laura Lopez de la Torre, Daniel Wallis, Nathan Walker, Nous Vous, and Charlotte Young.

Part of the difficulty in making the letters so large is that it is impossible to paint the letter in one brushstroke, since the paint runs out, and I am finding it difficult to make the letter look ‘flowing’ and energetic given the number of times it has to be in the repainted.

I decided that I needed to buy different types of large sized brushes, and hopefully find a brush with a ‘magic touch’.

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The hoarding surrounds a building site immediately outside the Charlie Chaplin Adventure Playground.

Earlier this year Frances Wiliams, Education & Outreach Manager at the South London Gallery, negotiated its use for an artwork to be completed for the opening of the gallery’s expanded building in June – the show that opens in the new gallery space has the theme of walls.

The invitation to make work on the hoarding resulted from a previous residency at the playground. The brief for the residency was simple:

DO NOTHING HANG OUT SEE WHAT HAPPENS

And so I played an inordinate amount of football on wednesday afternoons and saturday mornings and ached all over for the rest of the week, and ideas indeed came:

A faded outdoors mural was painted over with black paint and became an area where children’s (and staff’s) thoughts and drawings were recorded – this week when I re-visited Charlie Chaplin the March Table Tennis Competition results were recorded on the wall.

I asked the play workers what was there first memory of play ?

First time I remember living next to Ronnie Corbett and there were caves and bats and I played there a lot and I loved playing in the rain and getting wet all the time and I ended up with pneumonia ~ Leroy

Then what is play ?

Play is trying stuff out

Play is testing and pushing it

Play is courting danger then going to far

Play is having fun but always striving to win

Play is seeing how fast you can run

Play is jumping from height and snacks at midnight

Play is climbing to the bendy branches at the top of a tree and watching my gran be scared for me ~ Brendan

I asked children to write / tell me stories – some of these will be published shortly (more of this later).

And a discussion was held at the South London Gallery between play workers, gallery staff, and artists. To literally kick the evening of, a football match was held in the gallery.

After much running about, shouting, exuberant goal celebrations and sending offs the discussion revolved around these points:

What are the differences of approach between artists and play workers ?

How is the work they do the same and how it is different ?

In what senses do artists lead ?

In what senses can children lead ?

What are the differences in how artists and children play ?

Can artists learn from play workers ? Can playworkers learn from artists ?

How can artists work with children to create work? In what sense is it ‘work’ ?

Has children’s play any relationship to contemporary art practice? If so, in what sense ?

In what sense can working with children be described as collaborative ?

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