CRAZY DAMES + SPARK BOX STUDIO
Artist Talk and Tree House Project Workshop
Location: Modern Fuel Gallery (Kingston)
The Tree House Project focuses on childhood plans for tree houses and other forts envisioned as both personal spaces and realms of the imagination. Jennie asks visitors of all ages to recall childhood ambitions of spaces that never came to fruition. Often elaborate or capricious, children commonly devise plans that cannot be built due to limitations in reality, such as time, cost, and the increasingly commonly lack of space.
Through collaborative sketching and discussions, we recapture ideas that they once had for such spaces. From these sketches the artist creates tangible representations of their childhood ambitions and pursuit of autonomy through architectural drawings and scale models.
HOW TO BUILD A BLANKET FORT
Location: Drake Devonshire(Wellington)
HOW TO BUILD A BLANKET FORT is a workshop that invites adult participants to work together to transform the event location into an epic version of a quintessential childhood space. Participants are all encouraged to bring blankets*. The surrounding environment where the workshop is held will be used as supports/incorporated into the structure. While re-engaging with their child-like perspectives through this experience, the group will work together problem solving aesthetic, function and spatial preferences and choices.
For the final stage of the workshop, the group will use the completed fort as a communal forum for discussion about encouraging and making room for play/playfulness in the artist's studio, our daily lives and placemaking.
Campfire Stories
Location: Spark Box Studio (Picton)
Continuing on the theme of playfulness within our environments, Jennie and Sara led a story circle around a campfire where participants can share their experiences with playful local stories and legends . The stories shared could either be real experiences or imagined experiences of what could be.
WALK, TALK AND PLAY (Walkshop)
Location: Main Street Picton
WALK, TALK AND PLAY is an interactive tour of Picton, which included stops and discussions with Picton community residents. This walk took a blended format of a Jane’s Walk meets scavenger hunt or fictional tour.