Do you feel free to play?

Commissioned for Boston by JArts and curated and produced by Now + There, The Shape of Play, a new public art installation by artist Sari Carel, invites us to reflect on the connections between play and the universal search for freedom. An engaging multi-media work on view at Waterfront Park in the North End, The Shape of Play invites people from across Boston to come, play, question, and explore what freedom means now and what it may look like in the future. The sixteen-minute soudscape plays daily, 10am-7pm, twice an hour. On view through October 31.

Header photo: Nir Landau | Video: WhiteBirch Media

 

 

 

Imagination. Connection. Personal Expression. Fun.

Conceived in the pre-pandemic world, The Shape of Play has taken on new importance in a city full of padlocked play spaces and heightened awareness that not all people experience freedom equally.

Inspired by the beauty, form, function, and simplicity of everyday play structures, The Shape of Play fuses an ambient multi-channel soundtrack with a colorful and architectural sculpture evocative of children’s wooden building blocks. Using tones, textures, shapes, and rhythms, it conjures the playfulness, nostalgia, and life-affirming experiences that we often imagine when we think about our neighborhood playgrounds.

Played through speakers embedded in the sculpture, the multi-channel soundscape is at points whimsical, energetic, buoyant, and ethereal. Created by the artist using structures and play equipment at Boston-area playgrounds as the instrument, this dynamic auditory experience offers us moments of respite and delight, creates a communal experience through shared listening, and reminds us of the freedom we all deserve to express ourselves with joy and abandon.

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We know you’ve heard it from us. Now hear it straight from the artists, art-goers, and art stumbler-upon-ers we’ve met this year.

Tracing Sari Carel's "The Shape of Play"
Tracing Sari Carel's "The Shape of Play"

Did you know that the first “playground” in the United States was a giant sandbox (called a “sand garden”) in Boston’s North End? Neither did we…until now.

Q+A: Sari Carel on "The Shape of Play"
Q+A: Sari Carel on "The Shape of Play"

Assistant Curator Leah Triplett Harrington chats with Sari Carel, the artist behind our latest project, “The Shape of Play.”

"The Shape of Play" by Sari Carel debuts September 4
"The Shape of Play" by Sari Carel debuts September 4

The Shape of Play, a new temporary public art installation by artist Sari Carel, commissioned by the Jewish Arts Collaborative (JArts) and curated and produced by Now + There, will debut September 4 in the North End’s Waterfront Park, posing a provocative question: Do you feel free to play? This engaging multi-sensory work, up through October 31, invites us to reflect on the connections between play and the universal search for freedom through sight and sound.

Curation & Collaboration: Shaping a new public art project by Sari Carel
Curation & Collaboration: Shaping a new public art project by Sari Carel

Today as we excitedly announce Sari Carel’s new multi-media installation The Shape of Play, set to debut in Fall 2020 in the North End’s Waterfront Park, we’re offering up insight into the ideas, concepts, research, and artistic and practical influences that inform the curatorial and collaborative process that get us from early renderings all the way to fully realized artwork. Read on to hear from leaders on the JArts and Now + There project team, as well as the artist about some of the things that have shaped The Shape of Play.

Sited in Waterfront Park in Boston’s historic North End The Shape of Play will be installed a short distance from both the public playground located at the northern corner of the park as well as the main walkways and roads that bring people from the Harbor toward the Rose Kennedy Greenway and the entry to downtown Boston. The park itself, also known as Christopher Columbus park, is one subject of recent local debates about the racist roots of most public memorials and monuments. Originally inhabited and stewarded by the people of the Massachusetts tribe, Waterfront Park and the City of Boston are manifestations of a violent and exclusionary colonial system that stole freedom from many people over hundreds of years. 

As The Shape of Play seeks to explore themes of freedom we must also acknowledge the deliberate and systemic oppression that has created the built environment where this project will be installed. Along with the presentation of the artwork, Now + There will be holding space for public conversation and providing writing and other content exploring the centuries-long history of the site and the events, policies, and attitudes that have created the park we see today. 

 
 
Photo by Nir Landau

Photo by Nir Landau

Based in Brooklyn, New York, much of multi-media artist Sari Carel's work focuses on translation from one modality to another. Her projects consider interspecies communication, relationships between people and place, and how the senses inform our perception. Also an environmental activist, Sari is a sharp observer of ecosystems, be they natural or human. The Shape of Play is inspired by her many hours spent at playgrounds, watching her children, and considering the sounds that these abstract structures make.

“As a parent, I’ve spent many hours in playgrounds in many cities around the world. As an artist, I can’t help but notice how rich playgrounds are. In sight and sound. At the same time, playgrounds are so common that they are almost invisible. In my work I try to mine what might be invisible to us, to make things that are imperceptible visible and tangible and to make visible the lively relationship between place and abstraction.
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— Sari Carel

Carel’s work has been exhibited and screened internationally in venues such as Artists Space, Dumbo Arts Festival, Nicelle Beauchene Gallery, and Gavin Brown’s Enterprise in New York; LAX Art and Young Projects in Los Angeles; TA University Gallery in Tel Aviv, and Haifa Museum of Art in Israel and Locust Projects in Miami. She has been awarded numerous fellowships and residencies, including AIR at the Stundars Museum, Finland; AIR Vienna; the Socrates Sculpture Park Artist Fellowship and the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Residency on Governors Island, New York; and the Bundanon Residency, in Australia. Recent exhibitions include The Coyote After-School Program at Melanie Flood

 
 

The Shape of Play was commissioned by JArts, whose mission is to bring people together to explore and celebrate the diverse world of Jewish art, culture, and creative expression, has commissioned this project to engage people from across Boston in an active dialogue about culture, freedom, tradition, and change. Originally planned for a Spring 2020 installation and developed to explore the theme of freedom during the Jewish season of Passover, JArts is especially proud to bring this project to life amidst the extraordinary cultural and social change happening in Boston and across the country.

By inviting people of all ages and backgrounds to experience The Shape of Play, JArts is creating space for participants to explore imaginative possibilities for a future where all people are free. 

Special thanks to the Mayor’s Office of Arts and Culture, Boston Parks Department, Boston Art Commission, and Friends of Christopher Columbus Park for their support of The Shape of Play and to BRM Production Management for helping bring this project to life!

 
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The Brooklyn Rail Sari Carel: The Shape of Play November 22, 2020

“The senses here are active in a different way, as the installation was designed to generate excitement at a degree that is appropriate for developing an active imagination, rather than suppressing it. Here, Carel managed to capture the role of a playground at its essence.”

GBH Arts This Week: 'The Shape Of Play,' 'Tradition And Opulence' And 'Our Time Machine' September 17, 2020

“We've all gotten a bit nostalgic as we consider time and place and how we've all gotten here.”

The Boston Globe At Waterfront Park, a new artwork invites visitors to play a little longer September 16, 2020

"Carel points out the ties between play and freedom. It’s how we escape and relax. Without it, we’re trapped. Listening, and moving about the piece captivated me just as the sand engrossed the children in the sandboxes. Such a simple thing, really. And such a relief."

Boston Neighborhood Network (BNN) Public Art Debuts at Waterfront Park September 9, 2020

“We usually think of public art as a big statement, monumental, or even controversial. But public art can also tell us about little things, engaging our attention in a different way. That applies to The Shape of Play.”

Boston Neighborhood Network (BNN) Public Art Channels Sense of Play and Freedom September 4, 2020

“The installation uses sight and sound to prompt reflections on the joy of play and the urge for freedom.”