Winners of the prestigious Turner Art Prize (organized by the Tate Gallery) in 2015, Assemble are a collective based in London, UK, who work across the fields of art, architecture and design. Assemble’s practice seeks to address the typical disconnection between the public and the process by which places are made.

In 1962 the architect Lina Bo Bardi produced an evocative illustration of her design for the Museum of Art, São Paulo (MASP), depicting a number of play objects occupying the public space created by the structure of the building itself. Given Brazil’s political climate of the day, Bo Bardi’s work highlighted the fact that during the period of the dictatorship, entire childhoods would be lost. The drawing is a provocation; a tool to speak about civic life under military rule and the power that the lens of childhood allows in thinking about the making of alternative worlds.

Inspired by this now famous drawing, An Impossible Reality will realize 2 play sculptures from Bo Bardi’s original illustration as a point of departure to think about the type of imaginative freedom she employed. In a culture in which most playgrounds appear to be designed for the kind of play adults like to see children do, this project will challenge the confines of the gallery space and its use by destabilizing the traditional forms of permissiveness established there.

About Playing in Public at the Bentway:

The Bentway’s Summer 2021 season of artwork, themed around “playing in public”, will explore play’s role in shaping decisions about city fabric: Who writes the rules of play? How can they be unwritten? Who’s invited to play, and who isn’t?  How can we use play to create shared experiences and launch engaging conversations among a diverse population?

Playing In Public will include a mix of interactive installations and artist-designed play equipment, viewable (and playable!) for free everyday, as well as a series of durational events, performances, tours, and workshops.

PIA is proud to support two site-specific commissions at The Bentway as part of Playing In Public.