Re-enchanting urban play-parks

Abstract

In the secular, rationalistic worldview, ancient ideas of magic and enchantment are seen as primitive illusions. Banishing magic and mystery from the cultural tradition leads to the disenchantment of the world. It can be argued further that the world's disenchantment ultimately manifests as disengagement, boredom, apathy and depression. The concept of re-enchantment suggests a countermove to the process of disenchantment. What are the practical methods of re-enchantment?In 2018, I worked as a community artist in Helsinki City Play-parks. In my work, I conducted a series of art projects with children that focused on imagination and material play. The artistic process is not confined by the borders of the rational mind but advances through imaginative and intuitive insight. Working artistically with images, sounds, and movements opens us to the creative life forces. Communal art allows us to become the active creators of our collective environment and may lead to the re-enchantment of our lives.If the dominance of the rigidly rational mind is the cause of disenchantment, re-enchantment must find new ways of acting beyond the rational. The origin of the word enchantment suggests a casting of a magical spell through chanting. From the perspective of deep psychology, the spellbinding effect of enchantment can be seen as an unconscious projection of mental or emotional energy to a person, object or idea.My research draws upon the work on imagination done by Carl Gustav Jung and Gaston Bachelard. Jung developed the idea of the archetypes that are expressed in the images of the collective unconscious. Bachelard's work on material imagination reveals how poetic and artistic imagery rises from our relationship to different states of matter. The paper shows how the activation of the imaginative unconscious can lead to a re-enchanted view of ourselves and the world around us.