Helen McCrorie’s new video work: If play is neither inside or outside, where is it? presents a world without adults. It centres around an outdoor playgroup that meets on a former World War Two Prisoner of War Camp in Cultybraggan, most of which is now owned by the local Development Trust except for the former bunker that will soon become a privately owned data storage centre.
Exploring the theme of liminality, the video work juxtaposes war architecture and its grey industrial materiality with images of seemingly unsupervised children playing outdoors. Whilst we see children picking apples, drawing on walls with charcoal and playing with sand, we are also aware of the presence of fences and dark concrete spaces devoid of human beings. The rigidity of the setting contrasts with the liveliness of play. Past, present and future seem to unroll simultaneously with the help of soundscapes and cinematographic decisions.
The female narrator announces: ‘We are gatherers, we gather data. Decoding, encoding, we own the data’. Whilst this statement is visually accompanied by images of play, it also touches another subject that we contextually cannot ignore – that, in fact, we have no control over our data, which is owned and stored by others in bunkers, basements and data centres all over the world.
This spectre of data creates an ominous feeling – something may or may not happen. We start wondering whether there is a reason for the absence of adults. But the children keep playing. They occupy the space with serenity and freedom, adorned with Superman logos and t-shirts stating ‘full of beans’.
McCrorie’s work plays with our expectations and takes us outside our comfort zone before we realise that the malaise is internal. By positioning children as active protagonists, who can ‘turn prisons into playgrounds’, If play is neither inside or outside, where is it? is a refreshing addition to the Edinburgh Art Festival’s programme.
Helen McCrorie, If the play is neither inside or outside, where is it?, Collective until 6 October 2019.
- Franco Building with Jonathan Meades (BBC 4) - 28th August 2019