PLAYSWAP residency
residencies
In 2012 Pembroke House, a church and community centre in South London, I was funded by Near Neighbours to take on a 6 month live-in artist residency which aimed to bring people of different cultural and religious backgrounds together.
After a spontaneous visit to the Museum of Childhood, I decided to explore urban play as a means to encourage playful exchanges, comparisons and connections between the diverse communities of Walworth and the surrounding Elephant & Castle.
The residency took the form of: creative weekly workshops working with local children, adults and older people; the creation, writing and documentation through the blog www.playswap.blogspot.com; a collection of street games from local people, which became an archive now housed in the Southwark Local History Archive in John Harvard Library; a PLAYSWAP short film shot with filmmaker Michael Radford; a PLAYSWAP film screening for project participants, members of the wider local community and others which saw over 80 local people come together to celebrate play across cultural, economic and social divides.