FOREVER PLAYGROUND / PLAYGROUND FOREVER

FOREVER PLAYGROUND

A study of space, memory and the margins of urban planning

AKU AALTO

11 - 15/06/2025

OPENING 13th of JUNE

FOREVER PLAYGROUND explores the margins of urban space - wastelands, unused or forgotten places - from the perspective of the experience of youth and spatial freedom. These spaces, often without a defined function or formal value, serve as important sites for self-determined activity, play and experimentation. They were spaces where normative planning had not yet had time to define use - where one could simply be.

The sculptures and installations reveal the emergence of the artist's everyday environment and forms. They are not merely aesthetic creations, but material and spatial expressions that derive their meaning from the forms of everyday, often transient worlds. These forms not only make visible the features of the environment, but also highlight how space can act as a catalyst for the creative process. Forms and materials that originally appeared without any particular meaning as parts of the environment are given new life in the exhibition. They are linked to a spatial and formal-linguistic discourse in which the visual codes of everyday life open up to new meanings.

The exhibition raises a personal emotional attachment to these wastelands, but also a broader question: what kinds of spaces does current urban planning allow and value? Interstitial spaces, whose value is not economic or commercial, often remain invisible - or are quickly integrated into the logic of planning control and efficiency. FOREVER PLAYGROUND places itself at the edge of this design discourse. It serves both as a memory of spaces that only existed for a moment - and as a statement about the future of urban space: should we have a right to a space that has not yet been decided?

The photographs simulate idle landscapes, but the installations create a space in which the viewer is no longer a mere observer - they become part of the open and transformative space of the works. This spatial connection opens up a debate about how space is used and how it can be experienced. The works invite the viewer to reflect on the impact of contemporary urban planning principles on the nature and importance of free, undefined spaces as a context for creative activity.

FOREVER PLAYGROUND not only recalls past spaces of freedom, but raises a timely reflection on the possibilities and limitations of urban space. It challenges the viewer to consider whether we should have the right to a space that is not yet defined - a space where creativity, experimentation and disorder can flourish without predetermined constraints.