Pandemic playtime
Young people provided the art for a new online exhibition.
Anew online exhibition put on by the V&A Museum shows how young people have been playing and creating art during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The exhibition Play in the Pandemic (tinyurl.com/panplay) is based on hundreds of photos and art sent in by people aged up to 19. Its website launched on 23 March, exactly two years after the first lockdown was announced in the UK.
“These young people were interpreting and trying to make sense of the crisis,” said Katy
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Canales from the V&A, who curated the exhibition (“curated” means she chose which items to include). Her favourites include a picture using the phrase “I don’t want life to go back to normal, I want it to go back to better” by eight-year-old Woody, who has autism (a lifelong condition that affects how people feel, hear and see the world). “His family have been capturing his phrases and how he looks at the world since he was three,” Canales says. “He appreciated that something shifted in the pandemic and saw the chance to have a bit of a reset.” Canales also praises a digital magazine called HomeCool, whose young
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creators published it monthly during the pandemic. “There was such creativity and imagination,” she says. “Children throughout history have found ways to play, to create distraction and comic relief in the darkest of times, and to work with their families to find meaning in both personal and global crises.”
The exhibition is divided into sections on constructing, exploring, imagining and innovation. It displays a mix of artworks, photos, poems, stories and videos. The V&A team worked on the project with researchers at two universities in England: UCL in London and the University of Sheffield. “It’s really important that we have a record of what happened, to capture this moment for people and their families to look back on,” says Canales.
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