Report – The Art of Play

Posted on: Wednesday 03 July 2019 1:09pm by Jess Percival

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The Art of Play was a dive into how playing is an amazing way to connect not only with children, but also adults. The session was filled with creation, and lots of noise.

Takeaway:

• Grab fun with both hands
• Don’t limit children, they can create big things
• Play for play’s sake – it doesn’t have to be educational.
• You might have to help children reach a breakthrough, but the results will be wonderful.

Detail: 

The session was split into two halves, to demonstrate different types of play. The first half focused on play which involved toys and objects, things that you can get your hands on. The second was more focused on imagination, playfulness and sound.

The first half was led by Yesmin Kunter, who is a play expert and futurist. She works with both children and adults to encourage problem solving through play. With adults, she brings play into the workplace in order to help businesses visualise and identify problems they face at work. This could be visualising how your customers experience queue times, and using marshmallows and pens to show this.  Nine volunteers took on the challenge of becoming different age groups, and creating a story with the toys and items they had in front of them. The rest of the audience got to interact too by creating their ideal self in three years from now … using tinfoil!

The second half, was led by Ash Perrin, from ‘The Flying Seagull Project’. He works with refugee children around the world, in order to help them open up, as well as just to connect with them and give them the chance to have fun. Ash had everyone on their feet singing, shouting, whooping and dancing. The point of his session sounded simple enough – what does play feel, look and sound like. He discussed, and demonstrated how play should be infinite, limitless, and should allow children to explore a fantasy world, in order to help them build their future.

So what really is the art of play? As Ash put it – ‘The world is magical and glorious and exciting. We should encourage kids to be inventive so that in the future, we have solutions to problems we didn’t even know there was a solution to.’