Garden Play Community Engagement
Between June 2019 and February 2020 artist and early years specialist Stephanie Jefferies, architect and Studio Polpo director Mark Parsons, and The Hepworth Wakefield’s Families and Communities Programmer Jess Witkowska worked with the staff and children at The Castle Nursery in Wakefield to explore play and creativity.
These ideas were collated into a play resource for families in The Hepworth Wakefield Garden. The children and nursery staff generously shared and experimented, exploring themes around nature, seasons and weather linked to artworks in the gallery.
Nursery Play sessions
Stephanie and Mark played with the children and their families at the nursery over a series of sessions to explore materials, textures, mark making and sculpture. During these visits, they set up play environments in the nursery’s outdoor and indoor spaces allowing choice to freely explore and create. Each week had a different focus and included themes including water, earth, wind, body, sculpture, movement, light and shadow.
Gallery Visit
In November 2019, families from the nursery visited The Hepworth Wakefield. They journeyed through the galleries with movement, drawing, singing and looking. In the learning studios, they experimented with materials and ideas Steph and Mark had developed in response to their experiences with the children at the nursery, acting as an initial testing point in the development of the play resource.
Garden Play
As the sessions at the nursery came to an end, the project moved into the design and development phase. The team used the ideas, interactions and observations from the nursery sessions to devise a resource that offers multiple opportunities for creative, child-led play.
Garden Play arrived at The Hepworth Wakefield in summer 2021, as part of the holiday and weekend offer for families. Garden Play welcomes children to the garden and invites them to take charge of their own creativity.
New possibilities for the resource will continue to be developed in response to the seasons, weather, planting, architecture, people, communities and the vibrant exhibition programme at The Hepworth Wakefield.
The children really benefited from the experiences and visits and by using the items and materials in imaginative and exciting ways. The staff saw high levels of curiosity, excitement, engagement and fascination as the children explored and experimented. Throughout the project the children showed deep levels of thinking and learning as they worked things out through experimenting, trial and error and spending long periods of time with their favourite activities. Adele Guy, Deputy Head Teacher, The Castle Nursery, Wakefield
