I’m back from the festival fields of Shambala, a place where adults feel safe to play and enter into conversation with complete strangers. There’s nothing better than seeing a grown-up not only competing to be the best dressed individual, but actually diving straight into the role-play of their character.

Play was constantly on the cards; from competitive sports to Foul Play’s fox hunt game in the enchanted forest. In the next year or two I would like to take a game to a festival and contribute to the playful atmosphere. As festivals are one of my favourite open forms of permissions to play, it would be exciting to see one of my own creations let loose in a field.

One of the benefits of a festival environment is that it brings people together and forms communities. The attendees are constantly sharing experiences and feel confident to form conversations. It’s these connections between strangers that I want to try and create in my practice, as well as understanding how they work.

Back in the studio I have been continuing with Scrapstore Challenge. Having emailed Children’s Scrapstore, I arranged a meeting to discuss the idea of running the game on site. The meeting went well and the possibility of running an adult drop in workshop seems likely. 

Following on from this I’m currently entertaining the possibility of running the game at Engine Shed or placing the stepping-stones in exhibition place Platform 14 to see if it draws attention from residents and visitors. Should we be using this kind of technology to create conversations at networking events? I’m interested to see if the stepping-stone concept could be used at a networking event to facilitate conversation between strangers.

The reason I would like to try running the game in different locations is to explore whether the audience will differ. Will permission to play be affected by the site? And will it capture a different audience? 

This week I’m running a full test of the game at Watershed, stay tuned for news of how it went, photographs and hopefully future dates and locations where you can get involved too…