Forgotten Playgrounds: Unloved SpaceThis series of photographs...

Forgotten Playgrounds: Unloved Space

This series of photographs from photographer Guillem Vidal tugs at the heartstrings. It is a series of lost playgrounds, forgotten, abandoned, overlooked. Part of me starts to hum “Puff the Magic Dragon’ as it all points to the melancholy of lost childhood. In the photographer’s own words…

This series shows play areas for children or adults. Ranging from ephemeral children’s cabins t organised spaces built with durable materials. These spaces, once alive an now forgotten, are invaded by nature in the slow process of its transformation into ruins.

It is also worth noting that this makes a neat connection to the ways in which skateboarders make unloved urban space playgrounds. Each of these photographs hint at the fun that must have been had there. Similarly the banal urban spaces of the everyday ache with a possibility of joy. Perhaps a skateboarder, or an explosive parkour route, or  a pending canvas for the graffiti artist.

In the 1970s a variety of skateparks slowly began to crumble away as their poor design intersected with the more general fall from grace and popularity of skateboarding. Similarly there are numerous badly built and designed skateparks that now appear much like the photos above. Not necessarily forgotten, but certainly unloved. Might we see some of the best parks, and DIY spots one day similarly forgotten. Imagine a Southbank or Burnside destitute, or the Venice Beach Skatepark fractured and full of weeds.