GHAZALEH AVARZAMANI

Strange Temporalities
Segmented Slide on Metal Armature
57x38x42.5 in. (144x96x107 cm)
78x77x41x60 in. (198x195x104x152 cm)
44x86x25.5 in. (111x218x64 cm)
96.5x27x25 in. (245x68x63 cm)
100x69x41.5 in. (254x175x105 cm)
2018

Strange Temporalities is a reassemblage of a deconstructed plastic slide, the kind common to children’s playgrounds, that takes the components of a spiral slide and spreads them out into discrete parts. The slide becomes useless and also somewhat dangerous if one were to attempt to use it, embodying a failed assurance of safe enjoyment. As a space dedicated for use by children, playgrounds are sites of exploration. They exist to encourage play, exploration, exercise, and growth. The work deploys these obvious connections to childhood, but also explores notions of learning and forgetting, growth and erasure, accomplishment and failure. It aims to expose the paradoxical realities behind educational methodologies, personal aspirations and cultural manuals, by foregrounding play as an important mode of thinking while questioning what might constitute a “safe space.” Strange Temporalities manifests a psychological state that reorients the understanding of the playground as an unlikely monument, one which, through the aesthetic means of colour and shape, sheds light on the playground as an encoded cultural form.