Out
of PLAYce
by
Molly Jarboe
Toys abandoned on city streets and
in parking lots have gone through a transformation from being,
quite possibly very important to a child, to merely trash or debris
to adults. Toys neglected by children themselves on their own
neighborhood sidewalks, sometimes in front of their own homes
occupy a space on the edge, a middle ground within that transformation.
These objects that once belonged in a child’s play space
now occupy the ‘real world’ space of adults. The toys
stand as points of entry to the environments with which they are
not at ease and offer clues about the colliding of two very different
spaces.
By photographing
these objects at odds with their surroundings I am calling attention
to a new identity for them as lost artifacts. Now obsolete, they
can become objects of nostalgia and contemplation to adults viewing
images of them in a gallery setting.
A photograph can
provide an “unusual image of a familiar object, an image
different from those that we are accustomed to see, unusual and
yet true to nature, and for that reason doubly striking because
it surprises us, takes us out of our cocoon of habit, and at the
same time brings us back to ourselves by recalling to us an earlier
impression.” - Marcel
Proust, Remembrance of Things Past, In a Budding Grove
For children, a
toy is a replica of a real object in the world and it allows a
child to imagine adult reality through play. This matter is complicated,
however when we consider that toys are in fact devices introduced
to children by adults and toy manufacturers to begin instilling
social and ideological boundaries.
“Social practices
are structured like languages, and ‘growing up’ is
a growing into a complex of structures that produce, as much as
they may be produced by, agents of the political process,”
- Victor Burgin in In/Different Spaces.
Spaces, both physical
and social, are defined by borders that determine the interaction
between different yet interrelated objects and/or people within
those spaces.
With this project,
I hope to provoke thought about the social space (or lack of space)
for children in society. As adults, have we become so preoccupied
with ensuring that our children have the latest modern toys that
we have forgotten about a child’s need for a private space
of play and discovery, a space perhaps even mysterious to adults?
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