Living environments as the expression of changing relationships between children and adults
The changing relationships between children and adults are expressed through their immediate living environments. The Biedermeier nursery, the homes of work-orientated Shaker communities, a
Iatmul dwelling in Papua New Guinea or the collective space of a Chinese kindergarten all contain furniture and/or artefacts that are carriers of meaning. Conspicuous by their presence, or
relative absence, they communicate messages about adult attitudes towards learning, the child's physical and psychological development, intimacy and order in the family, control, autonomy and
personal territory, and above all the role of play, the central force within the material world of childhood, irrespective of period or culture. Children are seen as microcosmic emblems of the adult human condition. In looking at the modern uses of childhood, it is possible to discover the vast hidden edifices of desires, projections and
expectations adults construct and form in relation to children. Through the ongoing experimentium mundi of the child at play it mimics, improvises, subverts and fragments these constructions.
This works on many levels: just as an entire global economy has now developed around children, so children continue to develop an economy on their own, imposing their own presence.
While children in many cultures do not act as commercial producers of artefacts intended to equip them with the means to negotiate the adult world, what they actually use, play with and benefit
from is often self-made, customised, and above all used in ways often not envisaged by the designer or other adult provider. It is the play between the adult and the child's relationship with the
world, where in the latter play is the opposite of habit, that engages us in our conceptual approach.
Thematic groupings
The exhibits are grouped into five themes defined by contrasting functions, featuring typologies that illuminate patterns of sleeping; basic functions; play forms; mobility; institutions of formal
and informal learning. The selection of exhibits cuts a broad swathe through many cultures and periods in order to illuminate links between them. These links include patterns of provision for
living, in communal or nuclear environments; patterns of interaction, involving a spectrum of daily behaviours, some linking the adult and child in a close physical relationship, others distancing
and/or controlling the child, and patterns of provision for playing and learning, encompassing formality and informality in forms and intentions. The adaptability of some objects and the relevance
of others to more than one theme underlines the point that the function of objects for children is rarely discrete.
The exhibits
These include a variety of types of artefacts, contextual images and a prepared video. The objects include cradles and cots, some extendable, folding, or adaptable into play objects; hammocks,
sleeping mats and bags, and a head rest; highchairs and other accessories relating to feeding, commode, nappy changing and grooming tables; rocking chairs and stools; rocking and constructional
play objects, play pens, tables, a play door, screens and assemblages; toys both made by children and designed by adults; objects relating to different modes of mobility: prams, haycarts, wagons,
buggies, bicycle seats and a car seat; baby walkers; sledges, bicycles, a scooter; slings, baby carriers and cradleboards; items used communally in the kindergarten; school furniture, and desks for
use at home.
The video, entitled Play Me, explores the theme of play using film footage from 1930s to the present day (producer: Helena Bullivant).