Play reimagines the gallery as a theatre for hospitality, generosity, and social connectivity through games. Games require players to simultaneously hold multiple viewpoints – to view their actions from the standpoint of other players within the aim, purpose and rules of the game. Childhood play helps us identify the viewpoints of the community, and our distinct selves in relation to the communities we are part of.
Galleries are where artworks meet their publics, the transformation room in which the work of art is done. Play suspends the gallery’s usual purpose as a stage in which artworks focus attention on specific topics, or objects, in such a way that they can be apprehended by audiences. As spaces where knowledge and discourse are exposed, informed and (re)ordered.The exhibition has historically been and still is a place of inclusion and exclusion that typically puts the viewer in a silenced and disciplined position. Play presents a different notion of critiquing exhibition viewing practices through parody and contestation.
Exhibitions are a temporary format. During Play Nexus Arts Gallery will be a multidimensional space that focuses attention on much more everyday life practices, as well as a space for critical discourse in which new publics and temporary groupings might emerge. Play invites new collaborations from an anti-racist perspective which might initiate a means for self-articulation for cultural producers from minoritised backgrounds.
