Free and daring! Play(grounds) as a place of identification, community, and disorder in the city

This full-day symposium hosted by Kunsthalle Zürich on the occasion of The Playground Project, gathers renown designers and researchers as well as planners and activists to discuss and define the conditions for autonomous, free, and daring play within urban space. What does it require to create places positively challenging the kids? And what must be the contribution of the given community towards it? The symposium presents new insight into different projects and experiences in planning spaces suitable for children in their various environments today. Approaches from different countries such as England, Denmark, India, and others may provide valuable clues. Good play space needs hardware and software. Therefore, this symposium also thinks of itself as a market square which offers information on new play initiatives in public space, and enables exchange among all participants in the big round-table discussion at the end of the day.

With Gabriela Burkhalter (curator of the exhibition), Marion Ebert (Activist, Kinderbaustelle Biel), Tim Gill (activist, author, scholar, London), Axel Fischer (Head of Maintenance Grün Stadt Zürich), Sven Goebel (Pro Juventute, Divisional Manager «Free Space and Participation», Zurich) & Petra Stocker (Pro Juventute, Project Coordinator «Play and Social Space», Zurich), Karl Guyer (Director GZ Wipkingen), Alberto Nanclares da Veiga & Manuel Polanco Pérez-Llantada (Basurama, artist collective, Madrid), Helle Nebelong (landscape architect, Copenhagen), Samuel Roth (Director open children and youth work Wattwil, Project Coordinator Kinderbaustelle Wattwil), Sreejata Roy (artist / pedagogue, Delhi), Xavier de la Salle (Group Ludic, artist collective, France), and an Apero supported by Pro Juventute

Registration: Julia Moritz, moritz [​at​] kunsthallezurich.ch

09:30 Registration, welcome coffee
10:00 Daniel Baumann, director Kunsthalle Zurich, welcome
10:15 Gabriela Burkhalter, introduction: The Playground Project
10:30 Tim Gill, keynote lecture: If playgrounds are the answer, then what is the question? (Engl.)
11:15 Xavier de la Salle, lecture: Group Ludic – What can we learn from it today? (Fr.)
11:45 Axel Fischer, presentation: New requirements and tendencies for playground planning in Zurich (Engl.)
12:15 Excursion/lunch: Playground GZ Wipkingen, with Karl Guyer, introduction (Ger.)
13:30 Helle Nebelong, lecture: Children’s Landscapes – Perspectives from Denmark (Engl.)
14:15 Marion Ebert, presentation: Kinderbaustelle Biel (Ger.)
14:45 Sven Goebel & Petra Stocker, presentation: Pro Juventute (Engl./Ger.)
15:30 Coffee break
15:45 Alberto Nanclares da Veiga & Manuel Polanco Pérez-Llantada, presentation: Basurama (Engl.)
16:15 Sreejata Roy, presentation: Dialogue (Engl.)
16:45 Panel discussion with all speakers and Samuel Roth (youth work & Kinderbaustelle Wattwil, Ger.), moderated by Daniel Baumann & Gabriela Burkhalter
17:45 Apéro, supported by Pro Juventute