ARTWORKS

ART/PLAY/RISK is a research collaboration between artists Sanné Mestrom and Nadia Odlum. Within their solo art practices, each artist investigates playable sculpture and public art.

Below are examples of artworks by Dr Sanné Mestrom or Nadia Odlum that create opportunities for play.

BODY AS A VERB

In Body As Verb, Sanné Mestrom looks at sculpture through a child’s eyes – recreating her 20th-century iconic modernist sculptures to invite physical engagement.

These sculptures are an exploration of the types of works that might make public spaces “less threatening, and more curious, dynamic and alive.” While each individual object is autonomous, the sculptural series can be reconfigured in countless arrangements - prostrate, outstretched or squatting structures all offer up sturdy support for smaller components or real bodies in the space.

For more information, click here.

LUDIC FOLLY 

Ludic Folly is a child-led pilot study in public art, where children “build” their own sculptural play environments. Through a child-led approach, the Ludic Folly pilot project seeks to address a larger research concern: What permanent infrastructure can we integrate into the built environment to make our cities more child-friendly?

In the interest of co-creating urban design responses with our children and ensuring we provide them with the playable environments they actually want, Ludic Folly is designed to test creative assumptions about the sorts of public art and/or sculpture children might be drawn to. It enables a detailed analysis of their play-behaviors, including: self-imposed boundaries of risk, creativity, challenge and comfort.

The first iteration of this study was conducted in the Blue Mountains, on Gundungarra and Darug Country. It was led by Dr Sanné Mestrom.

For more information, click here.

COLUMNS DES BURWOOD

Commissioned by Burwood Council as part of the Streets as Shared Spaces program, this artwork by Nadia Odlum invites audiences to play, move, and navigate their way through an urban street.

Columns des Burwood artwork draws inspiration from renowned French contemporary artist Daniel Buren’s ‘Le Deux Plateux’ (1986). Colloquially referred to as ‘Colonnes des Buren’, the work consists of 260 marble columns laid out in a perfect grid at different heights, which encourages physical interaction between artwork and audience.

Nadia Odlum’s playful homage echoes Buren’s ideas around spatial awareness and perception, but with new joyous energy that reflects the vibrancy of Burwood.

For more information, click here.

ROLL

Roll is a reconfigurable, interactive artwork created by Nadia Odlum. Featuring colourful recycled pipes and plastic balls, Roll can be constructed anywhere there is a grassy hill. Audiences are invited to harness gravity and creativity to play together in public space.

This artwork was first presented in Sydney Olympic Park, in Western Sydney. Since then it has travelled to HOTA (Home of the Arts) on the Gold Coast in Queensland, where it delighted audiences in the expansive grassy grounds. In June 2022 Roll was installed at Boronia Grove in Epping, for the project ‘Stepping through Epping’, commissioned by the City of Parramatta Council.

In it’s first iteration Roll was assembled by Odlum. In each subsequent iteration it is constructed through play by other artists, in response to an open instruction set.

For more information on this project, including a ‘making of’ video, click here.

SNAKES AND LADDERS

Snakes and Ladders is a collaborative public art project between Sydney artists Digby Webster and Nadia Odlum. This fifty-metre-long ground plane mural creates an accessible play space in the Western Sydney suburb of Sydney Olympic Park. Inspired by the classic game ‘Snakes and Ladders’ the artwork can be used as a life-size game board. Visitors can access a digital dice via the project signage, as well as accessible elements such as an audio description.

This project was commissioned Sydney Olympic Parks Authority and supported by Accessible Arts.

This artwork was included as a case study in the Journal of Public Space special issue ‘Universally Accessible Public Spaces for All’. To read this article click here.

For more information on this project, including a ‘making of’ video, click here.