PLAY, I FOLLOW YOU
Febrik project: Exhibition London, 2012 South London Gallery
An exhibition that collated a decade’s worth of research and findings concerning the concepts of play and public space from art collective Febrik, detailing its projects in Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, and housing estates in London.
This research began in 2003 in the Palestinian refugee camps of Lebanon, where the relationship between different communities, public space and play was investigated. Films and photographs document Febrik’s site-specific workshops and installations in the camps, accompanied by play manuals and playful animations which, rather than drawing conclusions, on-going findings and discoveries were illustrated. The exhibition further detailed the work of the ‘Shop of Possibilities’, an investigation of how abandoned objects can be transformed into play items, which was a continuation of the collective’s previous projects in Palestinian refugee camps, reimagined in the Sceaux Gardens Estate, south London, where they worked with children to design ‘Shop of Possibilities’, which included an evolving interactive wall of play items made from recycled objects.
Febrik’s research material was divided between the two rooms of the first floor galleries, with one space dedicated to the SLG-related projects. This included a projection of the ‘Shop of Possibilities’ blog and ‘A Proposition-O-Meter’ with the ‘Rail of Play Encounters’, a diagrammatic work that unpacked the relationships between artists, children and families, as well as between research and intervention.
Note: The above text is an edited version of the exhibition wall text.