Berlin Arts Festival

Background:

Alec, a member of my supervisory team, mentioned that he had previously exhibited work in Berlin as part of the 48 Stunden Neukölln art festival. He explained that this year's theme was play and playground and it would be a good opportunity to get involved. 

Their website described:

Play(ground)

For the 25th time we want to use Neukölln places artistically. With the 2023 festival edition, we are creating creative spaces between art and play under the theme Play(ground) .

Because playing is part of life and can be practiced as a contrast and balance to work, wars and conflicts, but also as a tool for playful processing. Whether as a voluntary, purposeful action that can unfold in freedom or as a playful, social action with strategy, self-discovery and the abundance of tasks towards our fellow human beings.

The game has an important role in urban society. What locations are used for the game? What social characteristics emerge from urban play?

In play - this complex and diverse phenomenon - we construct our own game framework, transform reality and define the game roles.

About the festival:

48 Hours Neukölln is an annual independent art festival in Berlin, organised by the Kulturnetzwerk Neukölln eV. It showcases a diverse range of artistic projects from the Berlin art scene and artists further afield, focusing on current social issues. The festival has been recognized with the EFFE award twice and celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2023. It received support from the Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Social Cohesion until the end of 2023, providing long-term planning security. Additionally, the Neukölln district office and various sponsors contribute to the festival's success, making it a significant cultural event in Berlin.

My proposal:

My GTA role involves working in the Applied Arts department at Wrexham University. We have amazing staff and students so I wanted to incorporate their work in my proposal as some of the artworks being produced involves play. I decided to call our exhibition "Chwarae - to play". Chwarae is Welsh and literally means to play. I exhibited some of my bricks and breeze blocks, filling different spaces in the venue with them for people to interact with. Bethan Parry's piece consisted of a pair of seesaw shoes, which visitors could interact with. Heulwen Wright created glass and ceramic 'paper' airplanes. Wayne Clark produced a ceramic stool. Julie Mellor created a playful metal sculpture.

Group Statement:

We are a group of artists from North Wales based at Wrexham School of Art. We called our exhibition Chwarae because that's the Welsh word that you have to play.

Emma explores play/playfulness in relation to a local theatre. They are currently being renovated and their research is part of a PhD exploring how sustainability, playfulness and community engagement contribute to wellbeing. The artwork consists of multiple brick shapes designed to be handled.

Bethan's artwork is intended to evoke a feeling of nostalgia by transporting us to different times and places. As you engage with the pieces, you may feel as if you are stepping back into a past moment or childhood memory. You are encouraged to play on the seesaw shoes in hopes of creating a unique and personal experience.

Wayne creates wood-fired ceramic furniture that plays with the materiality of clay and fire. The process of wood burning is a technique that has been used for centuries to create unique and long-lasting ceramics. With these qualities, Wayne creates stools from clay; a material not normally associated with furniture because it is fragile.

Heulwen draws inspiration from the wild and windswept places of her childhood in North and Mid Wales. She describes her childhood as a time of wonder and creativity.

Heulwen hopes her artwork evokes nostalgia with its paper airplane shapes. Playing with the fragility of memories as the planes are made of glass and clay.

Julie's sculptural objects and jewelry emphasize physical qualities and sensory experiences through playfulness. The work is designed to be touched, held and interacted with.

Journey to Berlin:

I traveled to Berlin by car with my husband and Bethan. We decided to visit other places on route. I kept a few bricks to take photos of on the route and to post about whilst traveling.

We started our journey from Wales to catch a ferry from Harwich to the Hook of Holland.

When we arrived in the Netherlands we decided to visit the famous Royal Delft Ceramic Museum and Factory. It was an amazing place where half was gallery/museum and the rest was a working ceramic factory. We decided to visit due to the blue and white bricks I had produced, similar to Delft.

Following this we traveled to Kinderdijk which is a UNESCO site consisting of 19 windmills.

The next day we traveled Berlin, stopping at Brandenburg on route.

We arrived a day before we needed to setup the exhibition so had a chance to explore the city.

It was then time to setup up the exhibition. We had initially struggled to get a venue. The festival is weird in that you apply with a proposal and get selected by a panel but then you have to find your own venue in Berlin. On their website they have a marketplace for artists and venues to talk about space and artworks. Luckily we found a venue that were accommodating; it was a live music venue who were already showing some paintings as part of the arts festival.

 As a treat at the end of the exhibition and after packing up, we went to a dessert restaurant.

The next day we started our journey back with a stop off in Bruges.

Whilst we were there, we got to see loads of other exhibitions and talk to other artists about their work and our own. One highlight was an inflatable road sign (unfortunately, this was the only photo I managed to take of it). It was designed to inflate when four people worked together by pressing buttons at the same time.

The posts I was sharing of the bricks journey to Berlin etc, were very popular on social media. I had people messaging me to ask what 'Brick' had been up to today. The whole journey became an exploration of play. I decided to produce a small photo book of the bricks journey. For the back cover I wrote this:

Chwarae - To Play

Research into play and playing with materials are closely intertwined, as playing with materials is often a key way in which researchers study play.

Playing with materials, such as blocks, clay or sand, can provide rich opportunities for people to engage in creative, imaginative and exploratory play. Through this process, we gain insights into a wide range of topics related to development, such as how we learn through play, how play supports cognitive and socio-emotional development and how play can be used to promote positive outcomes in areas such as education, mental health and well-being. 

This exhibition explored all aspects of play and I was lucky enough to be selected to participate. I used the journey to continue with play: documenting the bricks adventures there and back.