Remember when you were a kid and your parents would rake up the leaves in the front yard and keep them in piles before they bagged them up as yard waste? That was the impetus of this experiment, to recreate and analyze just what it is about a bunch of dead biomass that compels children and some adults to hurl themselves into it? To accomplish my goal I drafted some acquaintances and got them to aid in the construction and subsequent demolition of a large mound of discarded leaves in Allen Gardens.Craig interacts with gravity
Pre-pile play
When the time finally came and the pile was complete I had already observed as much enjoyment as I had anticipated seeing exclusively in the gathering phase, I had high hopes for the jumping phase. What I was surprised by however was that the same sort of play that had permeated the work
were now permeating the play, decidedly very little jumping actually went on, wrestling and throwing yes but not what I was thinking. Upon reflection this is a good thing I was being far to rigid with my expectations and not letting play simply happen.
Not jumping but definitely play
So I learned a few things for this but in conclusion the most glaring was my inability to cede control of a project that at this point should have very little of my meddling in it. This shows me that I should be looking at play not from an activity standpoint but from a creating situations where play may arise one.
PLAY IS A STATE FOR PEOPLE AND CANNOT/ WILL NOT HAPPEN IF NOT GIVEN THE CHANCE.
PLAY IS NOT AN ACTIVITY BUT A STATE OF EXISTENCE
Before we could indulge in the ritual of jumping in a large pile of leaves we first had to indulge in the ritual gathering up enough foliage so that we would not be indulging in a less enjoyable ritual of flinging ourselves in hard earth. During the gathering phase an unexpected discovery was made, I was anticipating everyone trying to get the work out of the way as soon as possible with maximum efficiency so that we could get straight to the jumping, but what I found was that the ritual of play extended far beyond the simply interaction between man and leaf. What I found was that as a matter of fact the play had begun long before I had intended it to and now the work had turned into leaf fights, and unorthodox yet creative and hilarious means of leaf gathering
Pre-pile play
When the time finally came and the pile was complete I had already observed as much enjoyment as I had anticipated seeing exclusively in the gathering phase, I had high hopes for the jumping phase. What I was surprised by however was that the same sort of play that had permeated the work
were now permeating the play, decidedly very little jumping actually went on, wrestling and throwing yes but not what I was thinking. Upon reflection this is a good thing I was being far to rigid with my expectations and not letting play simply happen.Not jumping but definitely play
So I learned a few things for this but in conclusion the most glaring was my inability to cede control of a project that at this point should have very little of my meddling in it. This shows me that I should be looking at play not from an activity standpoint but from a creating situations where play may arise one.
PLAY IS A STATE FOR PEOPLE AND CANNOT/ WILL NOT HAPPEN IF NOT GIVEN THE CHANCE.
PLAY IS NOT AN ACTIVITY BUT A STATE OF EXISTENCE
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