Inspired by the reimagining of the Young V&A archive, this project sought to deconstruct, reassemble and reclaim boundaries and authority over play by redesigning the confiscation cabinet from their collection. We aimed to critique how the museum as a whole acted as a sight of authority. This project produced wooden play parts inspired
by broken down Victorian style cabinets in the V&A, simplified and suggestive of their cabinet origins but never actually producing their original state. Participants are invited to remake the Confiscation Cabinet, reclaiming and subverting authority and authorship over the museum and boundaries of play through the endless possibilities of form, construction and deconstruction. This is further explored by taking the cabinet out of the interior of the museum, placing these objects in territories that are otherwise ‘out of bounds’ for play to occur, questioning restrictive play.
Project Manifesto:
1. The expanding and evolving playground
The playground is no longer a fixed defined space. It is an expansive territory that spills out into wider landscapes of life, provoking questions of play possibility and restriction.
2. Unprescribed play
Participators have their own agency within play, they are able to self-govern, create, destroy and imagine their own playground. Our philosophy means to produce mouldable states of play to investigate the extensive breadths of imagination.
3. Collaboration
Play will facilitate didactic relations through an equal standing and exchange of knowledge and ideas. We deconstruct authority over play and facilitate intergenerational collaboration that foregrounds childhood as a notion which isn’t bound by a development timeline but rather, something that should be nurtured and exercised at all ages.
