Play-space-Play — Ayan Rezaei

Play-space-Play
Urban interventions
2019

This project originated within the group “Experimental Utopia,” with the aim of activating public spaces through games. However, due to the COVID-19 lockdowns, the ideas were never brought to fruition. Later, the project evolved and was carried forward by other members of the group with a different approach.

‘Experimental utopia’

Play, the first and foremost free act, which is older than culture, has the power to change society. The society of the past was created through play. ‘Can you remember when you played together?": That's how you learnt about social life. In this opening ‘liminal space’, it is possible to introduce new laws, first locally and temporarily, and then to spread them through repetition, across space and time, from one place to the next and from one generation to the future.
This ‘showing oneself in public space’ and ‘acting’ is always accompanied by uncertainty. But it is precisely this uncertainty or newness that harbours hope for citizens and shows them a way to change their city together with others. This is the basis for a ‘better’
future.
The collective ‘Experimental Utopia’, founded by the three international artists Ayan Rezaei, Lama Ghanem and Tatjana Schinko, will transform public space through play with the support of Linz - the city of change. By creating social and spatial intersections between different kinds of people, they will work with the citizens of Linz to lay the foundations of the ‘city of tomorrow’ - a democratic place that is shared by all.