Vintage american playgrounds
Photojournalist Brenda Biondo documents the extinction of old school playgrounds in America.
Artist statement:
“Once Upon A Playground” is an on-going series of photographs centered on vintage playground equipment that is quickly disappearing from the American landscape. The equipment we grew up with – from towering metal slides installed in the 1940s to giant rocket ships erected in the 1970s – becomes more scarce each year as communities across the country renovate their parks and school yards. Enjoyed by generations of Americans, these vanishing artifacts of our childhoods represent a tangible piece of the country’s social and cultural history.
It reminds me of my childhood and how precarious and hazardous our playgrounds were at the time (or so it seems). Now it’s all about rubber flooring and soft surfaces, carefully set up by a risk-averse society. It makes me feel nostalgic but it also makes me wonder how useful these modern day playgrounds are for kids and their development. In fact, the usefulness of these rubber playgrounds has been questioned many times. The argument is that by over-protecting kids we prevent them from learning important skills related to risk assessment and management. Tim Gill does a lot of work in this area and he argues that over-protected children not only lack the ability to assess risks properly and to learn from their mistakes but they also tend to take more risks thus potentially putting themselves in more dangerous situations than expected. It’s interesting to see how our society evolves but how good it is for us in the long run is certainly debatable.
Anyhow, I am glad that someone decided to record these old school playgrounds.
[via Flavorpill]
Holly Miranda at the Westminster Reference Library
I went to see Holly Miranda’s little gig at the Westminster Reference Library not really knowing what to expect. Well, I was so totally bewitched that I didn’t want her to stop. It was an intimate concert, which made her music sound even more intense. Her voice was absolutely beautiful and her band was awesome too. Superb.
Critical Mass June 2010
“Critical Mass is a bicycling event typically held on the last Friday of every month in over 300 cities around the world. While the ride was originally founded in 1992 in San Francisco with the idea of drawing attention to how unfriendly the city was to cyclists, the leaderless structure of Critical Mass makes it impossible to assign it any one specific goal. In fact, the purpose of Critical Mass is not formalized beyond the direct action of meeting at a set location and time and traveling as a group through city or town streets on bikes” (Wikipedia).
For the June edition of the London Critical Mass, I met up with the VeloLovesCity gang and rode through the streets of London alongside a couple hundred of other cyclists. The weather was lovely but the ride was bumpy (see video below). Some of us were verbally or physically aggressed by motorists and towards the end of the ride we were cordoned off by the police! It ended up all fine with an impromptu party in front of the Foundry but these events highlight how much more work there is to be done to raise awareness and acceptance of cyclists on the roads.
