BAUBAU
A Play Space for Kids
From 4 September 2024
Play Day © Gropius Bau, photo: Guannan Li
Playing, laughing, making noise, letting off steam, doing nothing – all in an exhibition venue! From 4 September 2024, BAUBAU invites children to do exactly that. The artist Kerstin Brätsch designed an admission-free play space for kids, where more is allowed than forbidden. On the Gropius Bau’s ground floor, colourful wallpapers, structures, objects and open-ended material called “loose parts” configure flexible spaces that are shaped by children’s activities. They set the tone and decide what happens in this place, as it becomes a space for possibilities that can change from one day to the next.
BAUBAU will open in September 2024 in a prototype version. In the years to come it will continue to evolve and grow both inside and outside the Gropius Bau. This will happen in close consultation with children, always taking into account what they want, for this is their space.
Perhaps children can tell us so much about their own world that it can also be a model for us?
— Palle Nielsen
Play
Every child has the urge to play. This is how they learn to understand themselves in relation to the world. Open-ended, self-directed play is of particular importance to a child’s emotional and social development. Accordingly, the pedagogical concept of BAUBAU is fundamentally about play: here, children have time, space and permission to explore their own needs and interests. And they can do this in the company of “playworkers” – trained staff who create a safe and supportive environment for the children.
The Art
BAUBAU is inspired by The Model – an adventure playground installed at Stockholm’s Moderna Museet in 1968, which was devised by the artist and activist Palle Nielsen and the journalist and activist Gunilla Lundahl. Following the principles of adventure playgrounds, the everyday rules of art institutions don’t apply here: children have free reign and can have fun.
The multi-faceted interior created by Kerstin Brätsch is filled with references and the potential for inspiration. Elements from her own work – including marblings, paintings and stucco pieces – reappear here in various guises and new materials. Wallpapers, curtains, fabrics, seatings and other objects feature dinosaurs, fantastical beings, termite mounds and abstract elements. Their humorous, perhaps even uncanny presence creates an open scenario to play in.
Brätsch’s practice is all about absorbing and embracing outside influences. Having previously worked with artists and craftspeople, she is now working with children in a very different way. She conceives of the space as an open invitation to children to change and develop it in unpredictable ways. They can do so according to their own ideas and whims, without the artist’s input.