Playscapes/workshop
8 week workshop conducted with master students from the Academy of Architecture, Amsterdam
Oct. 29 – Dec. 17 2010
Participants: Ignas Uogintas, Tim Poppe, Dennis Tjonahen, Thijs Verdonk, Marielle Wetter, Wesley Wijnands, Chiel de Nooijer, Evelien de Mey, Marice Wenker
In this workshop we will modify a Renaissance painting by Peter Bruegel titled Kinderspelen. This image depicts an ecstatic city filled with children and adults in the middle of an anarchistic parade of free time. Upon closer look we might even consider that this escapade is an ecyclopedic study of games in the 16th century. Regardless of the artist’s meaning, what we can recognize in this image is a kind of behavior model for the city, one of endless recreation and escape from the tedious workweek. With an introduction to John Berger’s critique of the masterpiece from his TV series Ways of Seeing, we will transform the silent image into our daily lives and across the public spaces we inhabit. Together we will employ various techniques to allow this masterpiece to speak, to gain a new meaning in the 21stcentury by using sculpture, photography, video, interventions, performance events, publicity – whatever means you can come to terms with as a form of play.
