PARK PLAYGROUND
A research project on the park idea
Kerstin Bergendal 2010 –
The artistic research PARK PLAYGROUND began in 2010 and processes including the role of park games played in the urban green rooms during the 1900s in Sweden: A unifying platform that indirectly contributed to maintaining a vibrant community in a local area. Kerstin Bergendal reusing this platform as an artistic strategy. In one of the rooms of the gallery, the artist has drawn up an “art playground” where art knowledge and methods are playful tool for anyone visiting this place. She invites people with a clear relationship to the parks in Sundbyberg – municipal officials, politicians, residents or park visitors – and ask them to consider the park idea and function: How to reflect the town’s green areas residents’ relations to each other? Can a local community occur if culture permeates the city planning? Here is a playful state of emergency.
The call is made without real limitations and participants give their experiences and thoughts on to the artist. The talks were part of the mapping of Marabouparken that the artist began in early 2010 and is still continuing. The first phase of this artistic research project resulted in a proposal that would one day serve as an intervention in one or more parks in Sundbyberg. The survey and the proposal was presented with a large model, photographs and drawings in the exhibition Parkliv – Marabouparken Konsthall inaugural exhibition in August 2010.
The artist’s proposal consists in an ever changing version of the small pavilion at the wading pool in Marabou Park, with its flexible system of doors can facilitate a range of activities the parks as a café, performances and community center. In the large model of Marabouparken illustrating the proposal, we can see how the planned promenade outside the Marabou Park and the boat club could samleva if instead of a traditional design for mono operation, introduced the current negotiations as a planning principle for public spaces.