The ART/PLAY/RISK LAB is an interdisciplinary research and creative collaborative investigating public art's role in designing truly intergenerational cities where all ages can thrive. Comprised of artists, academics, architects, engineers, designers, landscape architects, and inclusion advocates, the lab brings together diverse expertise to reimagine public space as dynamic environments for creative expression, physical engagement, and social connection.
We combine scholarly, artistic, and interdisciplinary research to develop collaborative approaches to designing inclusive urban environments that serve children, adolescents, young adults, and broader communities. Our work spans research inquiry, creative practice, applied interventions such as PlayLink Universal, and community engagement through symposia and knowledge exchange. We explore how public art and creative urban culture—including skateboarding, parkour, break dancing, and other emerging practices—can transform overlooked and unwelcoming urban landscapes into spaces of genuine belonging and possibility, particularly for populations historically excluded from or underrepresented in public space use.
Our research examines three interconnected dimensions. Through Art, we investigate how contemporary public artworks and creative practices can activate and enrich urban environments whilst maintaining cultural and conceptual integrity. Through Play, we explore how cities can expand opportunities for meaningful physical, creative, and social engagement across all ages and abilities, challenging the assumption that public space is designed for only certain users. Through Risk, we address complex questions about how people of all ages encounter challenge, develop resilience, and learn to navigate uncertainty in shared urban space, questioning whether current approaches to safety and urban design adequately support human flourishing.
The lab convenes researchers, practitioners, artists, athletes, and communities through symposia such as City Canvas and Play Beyond Playgrounds, seeking to transform how we collectively imagine the role of public space in shaping equitable, creative, and healthy cities for everyone.
Dr Sanne Mestrom
LEAD RESEARCHER
Senior Lecturer, Sydney College of the Arts, University of Sydney
Dr. Mestrom’s practice-led research seeks to incorporate “play” into a socially engaged practice as a means to question the social consequences of urban design. Her current research investigates ways that art in public places – and urban design more broadly - can become critically integrated, inclusive and interactive spaces. To do so, her projects bring together sculpture and the body to examine the role of art in rewriting current definitions of ‘play’ as relating to the physical, experiential and ideological conditions of ‘place’. Creating temporary and permanent sculptural forms that respond to the built environment and our movement through it, softens the separation of art and everyday life; it is through this ‘softness’ that play has the potential to open up a space to escape certain logics, and denying logic is itself a subversive – and therefore political– action.
Nadia Odlum
RESEARCH ASSISTANT
PhD candidate, Sydney College of the Arts, University of Sydney
Nadia Odlum is a multidisciplinary artist, driven by a fascination with urban environments. Using a broad range of materials and methods, they create playful and immersive works that explore personal and collective experiences of urban life. Often working site-specifically, Odlum deploys queer curiosity to seek out new interactions and perceptions within urban space. Odlum’s work has been shown in galleries and public spaces across Australia and internationally. This includes presentations at the Art Gallery of NSW, Carriageworks, Artspace, Home of the Arts (HOTA) and MANA Contemporary USA, as well as public art commissions for Urban Art Projects and the City of Parramatta Council and pedagogical projects for Kaldor Public Art Projects and The Powerhouse Museum. Nadia Odlum is a past artist in residence at Parramatta Artists’ Studios Rydalmere, and a current PhD candidate at the University of Sydney.
ARCHITECT
Director, Principal Architect at Ciliberto Architects
With over 20 years’ experience in architectural practice, Anna is driven by a deep desire to create urban spaces that speak to equality, accessibility, and sustainability.
Collaborating with Dr Sanné Mestrom since 2015, Anna has worked on research-led projects such as the Skate Co Design, which explores traditionally excluded voices in the design of urban play spaces and the adaptive-reuse and co-design of urban playgrounds.
Anna uses her architectural training to connect practice with research, working in the public realm to create environments that are inclusive and sustainable. She’s particularly focused on servicing communities and designing environments that allow for moments of delight and connection to emerge naturally – bringing innovative solutions to play spaces for all.
At the core of Anna’s process lies a commitment to community and stakeholder consultation. She’s particularly experienced within brief development, managing consultant coordination, interpreting safety codes, construction documentation, overseeing fabrication and construction, and post-construction feedback.
ANNA CILIBERTO
CAITLIN ROSEBY
ARCHITECT
Research Assistant and Project Architect at Ciliberto Architects
With more than a decade of experience, Caitlin is driven by a desire to better understand and deliver innovative solutions to the play space that are both delightful and purposeful. Since 2019, she’s worked closely with Dr Sanné Mestrom across projects such as the Skate Co Design and Play Link Universal initiatives, where she’s focused on co-designing methodologies that engage diverse populations across a range of urban spaces.
Having graduated with a Masters in Architecture in 2020 and a Bachelor of Design (Architecture) in 2015 from the University of Sydney, Caitlin’s role involves managing all phases of project delivery, from briefing and concept design to detailed documentation, on-site management, and construction administration.
Through a highly collaborative process with fellow creatives, clients, stakeholders, and consultants, Caitlin ensures each project is delivered and executed with consideration and care. She’s particularly interested in the public realm, servicing communities and bringing innovative solutions to play spaces for all.
This research is an Australian Research Council (ARC) project, funded by the Australian Government
Dr. Mestrom is the recipient of an ARC Discovery Early Career Award (DECRA) project number DE220100904.
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