To play is to create joy with the resources at hand. It is an inherent need in every childhood and a space we remind ourselves to go back to as we grow older. Through play, constraints become building blocks in constructing new worlds, rewriting rules, and an invitation for others to participate. It is, in its essence, the root of creativity. In the State of Play, twelve artists are asked to respond to the notion of play through the lens of their practice. For some, such as Wendy Park, Melissa Joseph, and Dominique Fung, it is an investigation into their earliest memories of play. For Park, that came in the form of finding items to play with at her parents’ Los Angeles swap meet – scattered markers, post-it notes, and a Goosebumps book. For Joseph, they are the dolls of her nieces; a reflection of a more diverse place space than the one she grew up with. Fung roots into the most elemental forms of play in unleashing the unconscious mind and a remembrance of a childhood where there was limitless time to dream and observe the natural world.
