By Prisca Sam-Duru

The COVID-19 pandemic may someday become history but people’s experiences during the virus’ onslaught on humans, may never go away. Through diverse forms of artistic documentations, people across the world have preserved for future generations, what life looks like, as well as what it means to survive during a pandemic.

In a recent digital show, works exploring how Covid-19 impacted children’s play, are being exhibited. The new online exhibition highlighting children’s experiences of the Covid-19 pandemic was launched on March 23, 2022, which is exactly two years since it was announced that the UK would enter a national lockdown to combat the spread of the virus.

Tagged: The Play in The Pandemic, the exhibition funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, ESRC as part of the UK Research and Innovation’s rapid response to Covid-19, showcases contributions to a collaborative research project involving IOE, UCL’s Faculty of Education and Society, the UCL Bartlett Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis and the School of Education at the University of Sheffield.

Covering the period between 2020 and 2022, the Play Observatory research project called for entries from children, their families, schools, groups and organisations, to submit their experiences of play during the pandemic, through an online survey. Following the public invitation, hundreds of submissions from the UK and across the world, covering genres such as music videos, digital magazines as well as art created by children, were received. Parents also seized the opportunity to showcase through films, their children splashing in puddles or making snow angels.

Launched by Young V&A and hosted on the Play Observatory website, the exhibition is structured into four themes namely; Constructing, Imagining, Exploring and Innovating. Each theme explores different modes of children’s play. According to the organisers, the exhibition is presented as an ‘unfolding origami house. Inspired by children’s activities, the playful design reflects how people’s homes were transformed into the settings for many pandemic experiences.

A whole lot of interesting moments are captured in the show, including moments of fun and light-heartedness as Barbies are seen taking part in Joe Wicks’ Physical Education classes, face painting, and beach walks. The exhibition juxtaposes these with expressions of anxiety and grief recorded in children’s art and poetry from the time. 

Works featured in The Play in The Pandemic, in the words of Dr Yinka Olusoga, from the School of Education at the University of Sheffield, illustrate the numerous ways in which children have maintained and adapted play to connect, communicate and create.”

Dr Olusoga who led the online research survey for the project which is still seeking contributions from children further hinted that “Our survey aims to preserve for historical record, information about children’s experiences during the pandemic. We placed the child at the centre of our design as we want to hear about children and young people’s play from them, and their families, in their own words. One source of inspiration was the work of Iona and Peter Opie and their surveys of play and folklore in the second half of the 20th Century. Twenty-first Century technology means that as well as children’s own words, contributions have also included drawings, photographs, and films.

  “The devastating effects of the global pandemic, according to Katy Canales, Online Exhibition Producer, Young V&A, have impacted everyone, especially children and young people, who saw their lives upended as schools and playgrounds closed, were isolated from their friends and extended families, and restricted to their homes.”

 Canales explained that “Play in The Pandemic project strives to capture and amplify their voices and experiences, celebrating their resourcefulness, creativity, and empathy through a new playful online interactive experience. By collaborating with families and working alongside researchers at UCL and University of Sheffield, this project has caught a unique moment in children’s lives, providing insights into the pandemic for generations to come.”

On his part, Professor John Potter (IOE, UCL’s Faculty for Education and Society) expressed immense pride towards the project, “the work of the whole team at UCL and the University of Sheffield, and our collaboration with Young V&A, Great Ormond Street Hospital, and the British Library. We owe a great deal to the contributors, the children’s parents and carers who shared their experiences with such honesty and enthusiasm. We have put the spotlight on play as something which can foster wellbeing and resourcefulness of children and their families in difficult times.

We’ve also heard about when things didn’t go well and about the deeply mixed feelings and strong emotions children felt since Covid started affecting their lives. This project has enabled us to move the discussion on from ‘learning loss’ as the only effect of the pandemic on childhood and given us a chance to reflect on how children may respond now and in the future to crises and emergencies. I hope the exhibition and project will move those who interact with it and help to illustrate how play is not just ephemeral and transient, but something which is central and essential in our lives.”

Vanguard News