The project title is lifted from a conception of early childhood gameplay that differentiates between ‘imaginative’ and ‘parallel’ forms of relation. In imaginative play, children perform within a shared narrative framework – for example, ‘king & queen’ or ‘cops & robbers’. Parallel play accounts for circumstances where children perform different, self-determined activities in the same space whilst acknowledging the presence of the other in the shared domain (one is playing blocks, for example, while the other draws).

What is the generative potential of such forms of independent play, where different processes are performed in close proximity to one another?

Within the context of arts practices, imaginative play can be mapped onto strategies of collaboration or collectivism. In these instances, practitioners reside and generate within a communal value set or mission. The individual acts in service of the group.

This offers a modal alternative to the modernist conception of the artist as a hermetic agent of unique and uncompromising vision.

Parallel Play wonders after the intersection of these framings. Modelling off the communal studio, the A4 Gallery becomes a site of both individual pursuits and communal exchange/cross-pollination.