It was a quiet chilly day at the playground and I’d been chatting with a fellow playworker about what to do with an underused and in-the-way wooden leaflet stand. I wasn’t feeling particularly inspired and was mostly coming up with overly complex ideas involving a box of wool I’d uncovered and been a bit desperate to use. Fortunately at this point a thirteen year old and master of too-cool-to-care conversation wondered in and I asked what he thought I should do with it. He looked at me with slight bafflement and, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, said “put leaflets on it.”
In hindsight I see that it was the most obvious thing in the world, just not to my overthinking adult brain. I’m also pretty sure he was trying to sass me but he still couldn’t hide his enjoyment of my enthusiastic response. I grabbed a bunch of coloured card and pens, wheeled the stand out into an open space and set about making leaflets.
I amused myself for a while creating ad’s for missing ‘cats’, lost tooth notices and ‘bassist wanted’ posters. This attracted some inquisitive browsing and questioning but it wasn’t until a kid decided to make a ‘wanted’ poster for their brother that things suddenly took off, suddenly everyone was having wanted portraits made and bizarre rewards attached.
The thing about this is it was far from a popular activity in the playground. But things don’t always have to be popular to be valuable. The kids who enjoyed it really enjoyed it. It the kind of play that appeals to a certain kind of kid. A play that uses the familiar as a jump of point, it’s a subversive kind of play, a bit like certain kinds of comedy, where you mess around with a vernacular or set of rules that are not yours but you know well. It’s also a very autistic kind of play, and perhaps the kind of play that you might miss if you’re not so familiar with the appeal.
As a kid I think my playfulness was often mistaken for seriousness, or not knowing how to enjoy myself. I remember being in primary school, probably about 8 or 9 and wanting to spend break time writing weather reports which I would then deliver stoically standing in front of an empty whiteboard to no one in particular. From an outsider it might have looked like I was in need of guidance or support interacting with my peers, and perhaps to a certain extent I did, but also I was having the greatest time amusing myself, I was playing, just, not in a way people recognised. The kid who delights in making fake leaflets might be looked at with the same confusion by well-meaning adults who just want them to have fun. As play-workers we can create opportunities to draw this subversive hidden play out; these might just be some of your most joyful and surprising interactions. Examples of this might be making nonsensical road signs, reorganising or creating ‘adult’ spaces such as offices or waiting rooms, or re-enacting scenes from movies over and over with the slightest whimsical tweaks nearly invisible to the outside-eye.
The leaflet stand is slowly becoming repopulated with ‘real’ leaflets and family magazines but they’re remain interspersed with “Missing Flamingos!’ and “Wanted” children. I feel that it sits somewhere between art installation and play activity. I enjoy seeing it change over time, contributing to the playful atmosphere of the hall from its overlooked corner, a quiet reminder that there is nothing in this world too mundane to find joy and silliness in.
Play Radical 