Children’s production of place and (third) space during Covid 19: Den building, filmmaking and the postdigital in the Play Observatory

Abstract

The Play Observatory was a COVID-19 rapid response project funded by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) exploring children’s play experiences during the pandemic through an online survey, case studies and a filmmaking workshop. With access to many of the usual spaces and places of play curtailed during the lockdowns of the pandemic, in this article, we focus on children’s resourceful and playful placemaking during the restrictions, as well as their creation of mediated third spaces in their own homes and neighbourhoods. We discuss Play Observatory survey submissions centring on children’s use of space and place in their play. Images of den-building showed imaginative productions of worlds in the spaces of the home in which children felt secure. Arguably this was to do with the way they used material artefacts to move the locus of control closer to themselves, even as the world seemed out of control for many. In the same way, video clips and films submitted to the Observatory revealed much about everyday life during the pandemic, the third spaces that were enabled and the postdigital worlds of entanglement in which children played. This paper will present and discuss contributions to the Play Observatory’s archive which are revelatory of children’s exploration of time, space and placemaking during restrictions associated with the pandemics. In our explanation of how the pandemic influenced play, we offer insights into young people’s postdigital and collusive creative practices and their playful imbrication of material and cultural resources.