Recife Playable City

Recife: The Playable City celebratory film released

Posted on Wed 11 June 2014

Recife: The Playable City in April was a fantastic cultural exchange between Watershed and Brazil’s Porto Digital. It brought together practitioners from the UK and Brazil to explore how play can shape the future of our cities. Watershed produced the programme in partnership with the British Council and Brazilian technology park Porto Digital. We’re now delighted to announce the release of a short film that shares what happened:

Recife: The Playable City in April was a fantastic cultural exchange between Watershed and Brazil’s Porto Digital. It brought together practitioners from the UK and Brazil to explore how play can shape the future of our cities. Watershed produced the programme in partnership with the British Council and Brazilian technology park Porto Digital. We’re now delighted to announce the release of a short film that shares what happened:

Recife: The Playable City was an ideas laboratory. It enabled 20 practitioners to spend time in the cities of Bristol, and Recife in Brazil, considering exactly what a Playable City could be. The group shared many thoughts, and created playful experiences for Recife. These included fortune telling bus stops, lighted pathways on rivers (see image above), touch controlled musical installations and theatrical city tours. You can read more about the ideas in this blog post.

The Playable City is a term coined in Bristol, as a counterpoint to a 'Smart City’. It is imagined as a place where people, hospitality and openness are key. Where residents and visitors can reconfigure and rewrite the city’s services, places and stories. This programme transformed Recife into the world’s second Playable City after Bristol, a place where citizens have a voice and where there is permission to be playful in public.

Victoria Tillotson, Producer at Watershed explains:

"Our recent Brazil exchange culminated in a fantastic celebratory Showcase in Recife. It was incredibly hard work, but we opened to the public (on time!), offering talks, workshops, exhibits, interventions and an amazing street party. The public were invited to get involved and experience their city in a new way. We were thrilled by their upbeat response.

“Recife: The Playable City was fantastic and has proven that cities and citizens, can learn so much from each other. As a result, we’ve become excited about taking this idea further, to establish a global network of Playable Cities. We’re proud that Recife are a founder member of this network and can’t wait to see what happens next."

Recife: The Playable City is part of Watershed’s wider Playable City theme which includes Shadowing the Playable City Award, and a Conference in September.



× Close

Help us make our website work better for you

We use Google Analytics to gather information on how our website is used. This information helps us to make changes to our website that improve the usefulness and overall experience for our visitors. If you would like to help us to make continuous improvements to our website, please allow us to set "first-party" cookies (only readable by us) so that we can distinguish visitors and gain greater insights.

Allow cookies for analytics Deny cookies for analytics