Support new art commissions at Goldsmiths Nursery

playgrounding is an ongoing curatorial research project located at Goldsmiths Nursery, culminating in two artistic commissions in the nature garden by artists Rebecca Sainsot-Reynolds and Lyndon Harrison. Through methods of socially engaged practice led through dialogue, archival research, and workshops with the children at Goldsmiths Nursery, playgrounding seeks to render visible caring services that are too often undervalued and underfunded.

playgrounding seeks to demonstrate how nurseries can occupy a central point between an art institution and its local community. In the specific case of Goldsmiths Nursery, its users are predominantly residents of New Cross, thus playgrounding provides an opportunity for stronger connections to be built between Goldsmiths and the community in which it sits. The project takes its name from the idea that play is the starting point and grounding for work; it questions what it might mean to introduce more playful methods of working in the neoliberal environment of the art institution. With a specific focus on pedagogy through practices of play, exploration, and imagination, playgrounding examines what we can learn from alternative childcare practices and the impact they have on the environment of an institution and wider community. It centres around the belief that if both children and students can see this type of care being carried out in an art school, it can be replicated in working models in the wider art world, encouraging more institutions to value care as a key part of their infrastructure.

Through processes of embedded curating which focus on building and maintaining caring relationships with the Goldsmiths Nursery staff and children and continuous dialogue and listening practices, the Nursery nature garden has been allocated as the central focus of playgrounding. Its features need upgrading and the space is becoming overgrown and less accessible as a result of the recent redundancy of the gardener. The children and staff highlighted two main features they would like their garden to house; a den/hideaway structure surrounding their existing play area and a colourful mural. The den/hideout structure will be designed collaboratively with the children and produced by Rebecca Sainsot-Reynolds. The mural will be designed by Lyndon Harrison with the assistance of the children and then painted on the main wall of the garden space. The designs will be finalised through multiple art/play sessions between the artists and children and will be installed in August 2022.

The money donated will be used to pay 2x artist fees and cover material and transportation costs.