Soundbite: The Production of Play: new forms for civic engagement within contested urban realms

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About

The potential of play goes far beyond the concept of recreation embraced by urban planners. Play, like space, can be understood as a social product.  The relational, pedagogic and creative capacity of the play instinct is primordial, yet it can be harnessed to effect social change. Drawing from previous projects that explore play as a methodology to deal, through participatory processes, with the complexities of social and urban change, this talk will reflect upon how the use of play in public space can be a driving force for new forms of empowerment and civic engagement.

The Speaker

Catalina Pollak Williamson is an architect, artist and urban activist working and researching cross-disciplinary processes that use participation and play as methodologies to drive urban and social change. She is particularly interested in the potential of play as a relational process that can contribute to the development of capabilities and civic agency in the production of more empowered and engaged citizens. Since 2012, she has run Public Interventions, a collaborative platform for participatory art and design-research projects concerned with the social production of public space, and the development of new temporary practices of commoning to connect and engage communities with their built environment.   She is currently doing her PhD at the Bartlett Development Planning Unit and teaching at East London University.