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We are finally getting round to reviewing some of the photos and the comments participants generously shared with us during Play Cambridge Now or Never! event last week.

The walk was structured around a series of prompts – to play- to think or imagine possibilities or playscapes out of reach…

We started the walk at the station, which was busy on a Saturday afternoon. After playing ‘Cambridge Chopsticks’ on the shutters, we slipped through a tiny alleyway to the much quieter new development. The paths were lined with ‘pig ears’ – they really are called that and tea metal shapes embedded in the raised surfaces- there to prevent skateboarders from using them. We asked for alternative uses for the pigs ears.

Continue reading On pigs Ears, Mound Envy and Walking Backwards or refections on Play Cambridge Now or Never!

We’ve been so lucky with the weather and so enjoyed the participants that came along to Play Cambridge Now or Never – here only a small selection of the images – hot off the press –  more will be posted soon along with reflections  – for it was truly a rich and inspiring event…

Continue reading Playing Cambridge Now or Never!

We’ve been invited to run Play Cambridge Now or Never! for the Festival of Ideas’ Curating Cambridge program (which is already fully booked)

Two years ago we ran a playful walk around CB1 called Time to C and B – for Cambridge Curiosity and Imagination in collaboration Aid and Abet. The space we started Time to C and B from, as well as the hotel which we thought we would start from this time – have both been demolished…

We’ve walked around the area we think hold most potential for questioning and reflecting on where one can and cannot play in this rapidly changing city. here are some images we collected on our preparatory walk- watch this space for an update after the 15th November…

Continue reading Getting ready for Play Cambridge Now or Never

We’ve been invited to predict what walking would look like in five years time.

Visit the Talking Walking Blog to hear our forecast 

We’ve been busy working away but the project still figures in many shapes and forms since we last posted, in fact its getting around…We’ve shown the DIY Die of Play the City Now or Never! at a variety of shows- for example:

We were part of a show at Cambridge Artworks and Artspace in December 2013 with the die as a hand out, whereas at Eastern Approaches at UH Galleries, also in December, we showed the die framed.

Continue reading Working Away

During the winter months as we make contacts and do some research to prepare our funding application, we also give two talks about the project so far as well as our future plans.

in december we go to METAL Southend’s Future park event and later on in the new year we make our way to METAL Peterborough,  where we are a double bill with Artist Ruth Catlow- which proves to be a great match and a pleasure to meet.

Its useful to hear people’s comments and questions and the time spent together planning the talks as well as processing the feedback is also very fruitful, as we refine ideas and concepts.

We also have a lovely e mail message forwarded the day after our talk in Peterborough which makes us very happy and encourages us to think we are on the right track….

The message says: ‘

I thought the artists were most thought provoking…

I liked their style of presentation, it was accessible and at the same time challenging one’s ideas and thoughts. Love to hear that process of conceptualisation described with such passion!

We spend our last day of the Time& Space residency talking to Delaine Le Bas who is working in the main space on her To Gypsyland project. We talk about contested sites, accessibility, touring work and racism issues- which run through our respective works.

We also visit the Museum, where we learn a bit more about Peterborough’s beginnings as a new town forty years ago.

Here we also discover to our amazement that the city was a national centre for board games’ manufacturing including some ‘iconic’ games and even had its own game named after it.

And finally as the clouds gather and the evening draws to a close – we spend some time on starting our grant application for a project in the new year. Watch this space….

We make up a die using words we’ve collected in past few days. The die is inspired by StoryCubes by Proboscis with whom we’ve worked before.

With the die we head off into the centre to talk to people we meet. We ask to roll the die and tell us a place that comes to mind in and around Peterborough. Responses vary enormously and range from parking issues to erasure of Britishness…

Some people answer very briefly whilst other want to throw the die again and again or just go through each word in turn.

RESIDENT – ‘I’m not’ – we meet the same person again later and after asking us how we’re getting on, tell us about  The Dice Man –  a novel published in 1971 by Luke Rhinehart and tells the story of a psychiatrist who begins making life decisions based on the casting of dice.

Someone else says ‘too many eastern residents…they spend money but also send it home. The elderly are the more racist ones…they feel forgotten about…’

GREEN – ‘There is nowhere near where we live. Have to go a long way to find open green spaces.’  ‘Not much of it here (in Cathedral square) thought its a beautiful place… that’s why we sat here. We came for the day on mission to find Catherine of Aragon…’

CONNECTION – ‘Makes me think of EE, Thomas Cook, Central Library, and the fact that  there are lots more languages here recently…’

LINES –  ‘Double yellow. Lots more of these now. You have to really be careful where you park.’

‘Walton, where the trains go past. Perkins engines used to use the lines there for their diesel engines, now there is a big Morrison’s supermarket.’

NEW – ‘thats us. We just moved here three months ago.’ ‘The first day of the rest of your life’