For a few weeks, Polyglot have been holding a social event called “Tangle” in front of the palm trees in our campus, NYUAD. The exhibition consists of a few long poles on which the participant has to walk around and tie up (or tangle) long strings several times, thus creating a large web like structure, or a “tangle” of elastic over time. The structure becomes more complex and compact over time, allowing the participants to interact with it in different ways, for example climbing on it, sitting on it, pulling it, etc. It is also quite eye0catching because many different colours are used to create the structure. One thing that I did notice is that people seem to tangle more elastics around the central area, and seem to play and interact more in that spot as opposed to the outer corners of the exhibition. This could be because it could be interpreted as a “social spot” which attracts more people to tangle strings and interact with each other, thus making the tangle of elastics there thicker or more durable for play in a way.

The social nature of the play in tangle is quite interesting.  When I participated in the event, I could see many children and their parents playing with one another, and also playing with different children. In the area where there was more of a crowd, I saw some children climbing on the poles and the strings, while concerned parents stood by them in fear that they would fall and hurt themselves, but in the less tangles areas, there were less children and more adolescents and adults just walking underneath the structure and observing the children play. The actors were also taking part in the game by moving around and influencing the children’s creative ideas. An actor  even tangled me with two other adults in the exhibition to influence a playful environment, to show that the structure was not just necessarily for children, but to target and even larger audience.

What the exhibition does in a sense is give the children freedom to express themselves and their ideas through the space that is provided to them. The actors don’t influence them to act in anyway, and they are able to come up with their own way of playing through the materials they are provided with. This is not to say that each child has their own idea, but once a child sees another one behaving or playing in a way that looks interesting to them, they are inclined to imitate them in order to experience that form of play. I personally would have loved to climb on the structure, but was afraid I might have hurt the children there due to my weight and size, which also worried me that maybe the structure wouldn’t be able to hold me up the way it could support a child.

This form of play is different to our conventional games because there is no exact aim or outcome of the game within the given space. The children are just given materials  and are free to create their own kind of entertainment within the space. For example, the games that we played in class with the actors had an aim; keep the paper ball up in the air, or do not get caught by the dragon. this allows the children to be innovative and creative in terms of the type of game they are coming up with, there are no rules or specific number of players that need to participate in order for the game to be playable, therefore I believe that Polyglot have achieved this free environment for children to play and be creative, as well as interact with the other children in the exhibition through this form of expression.