How to… bring communities together through play

A shipping container in Leeds is helping local people to connect and become architects of their neighbourhoods, through play and creativity, as Emma Bearman, founder of Playful Anywhere, explains 

In 2014 Playful Anywhere completed a year long festival called March of the Robots, which engaged over 7000 people in creating robots across Leeds.

Along the way we’d acquired a shipping container which became a Roving Robot Lab, and, led by a team of artists, toured schools, car parks, shopping malls and community centres.

The robots festival fitted with our core mission to go where people are, to create not consume, and to be inventive imagineers, no matter how old we are. We saw the most amazing range of robots created, from cardboard to code, with cookies, conductive circuits, chocolate and everything between!

When the festival finished the shipping container sat in a car park, before landing for a month in a piece of common land in Armley called Charlie Cake Park. Stripped of its original purpose, we opened its doors and met people who used the space, from park volunteers to dog walkers and drinkers, from children and parents to lone people out on a wander.

With no fixed agenda we made friends, got to know what people wanted out of the park, and started to put on events together. We fundraised for creative workshops and an artist-led project involving 300 people making tiles to cover the old concrete benches. We intended to be there a month and ended up staying for six! Cue big sobs all around when the hauliers took the Playbox away to be part of the British Art Show in Leeds City Centre.

‘Our core mission to go where people are, to

create not consume, and to be inventive imagineers’

Since then the Playbox has been invited into communities; commissioned, booked for hire, delivered playdays for commercial partners as well as hosted by the fantastic LS14 Trust who had a hunch that it provided a tactical solution to making change in their local park in Seacroft, Rein Park. The trust used Playbox to complement their wider programme of activities around healthy eating together, as well as informal opening hours to gather locals around what they wanted for their park.

Since last summer Playful Anywhere and LS14 Trust have worked together to develop plans to create a pilot for resident and community-led Playboxes which put families at the heart of play and creativity programmes where they live. As a result LS14 Trust successfully secured Children in Need Funding for a Playbox and part time play development role for three years.

Our original Playbox01 is heading back to Seacroft for a month’s stay while the neighbourhood, schools and LS14 Trust work together to determine what their Playbox will look like, and what it will do in that location. As we develop this social play network we’re keen to learn from what is driven by the unique community in that place as well as share ideas, failures, and policies across the network as it grows.

Creating a bridge between generations
With funding from Leeds 2023 and Leeds Inspired we are now refurbishing our second shipping container, Toybox (@playbox002) within which we will collect old toys and dolls destined for landfill, make new toys from old, power the Toybox to make it playable anywhere in the world, and come to life when we are not there to open it.

It’s fun and creative, both nostalgic and forward facing, as we interpret heritage and memories to create a bridge between generations and inspire people to be makers of games and toys, using all sorts of tools at our disposal. We’re delivering corporate bookings for family days, as well as being part of Light Night Festival where we’ll involve people in making a huge Spirograph drawing in honour of Denys Fisher, the Leeds born inventor of Spirograph, Sticklebrick and many more popular games.

Our bigger plans are to create a mega Playbox Planet, a public facing hub for creative making and playing, which supports the growth of our social franchise and network of resident and neighbourhood Playboxes anywhere and everywhere.

The time is certainly ripe for people to put play and creativity in the heart of where they live, to be architects of their own neighbourhoods, and make the most of where they live. Our experience shows that the robust and versatile Playbox gets everybody talking, creates space for relaxing and coming up with ideas of what would make where we live even more convivial and welcoming. It helps people connect, cook up ideas and feasts as well as imagine the future together. And then set about making it so!

Can you help us?

We’re looking for supporters who can help us power our play revolution! If you can help us with renewable energy solutions for powering our Playboxes off grid we can do even more! Sensing, interactive and curious Playboxes enabling communities to generate their own light, bubbles, tech, digital drop ins, and playability year round.

We’re also keen to hear from organisations who want to help more communities put long term robust shareable play facilities where they live. From gifting time, money, games, toys, sports equipment, through to helping design and kit out a local Playbox!