During the last three years we have been documenting our children’s play.  Artists As Parents As Artists will be a presentation of artwork we have made in response to this documentation. The artwork on show will include large-scale photos, two films and a series of drawings.
 
We have found that many art events (talks, exhibitions, residencies) are difficult or impossible to access with our children. For this reason Artists As Parents As Artists is an event for both children and adults. Central to the event will be play and food. There will be a range of loose materials that can be rearranged, played with and used constructively by both children and adults during the event. There will also be a communal meal. Rather than devote a particular section of the event to discussion of the artwork, this will take place in amongst the other activities. 

About Townley and Bradby:

We make work in spaces that are already being used by someone else. Our practice is collaborative. We work together, passing ideas back and forth, seeing them transform in the process. We have been using film, drawing, and hand-written observations to record the patterns that our children’s play creates around our home. By recording the objects that they use, the spaces that they temporarily occupy, and the exchanges that take place, we are constructing an archive of the tangible expression of family activity. More recently, the scope of these observations has widened; the children have a camera and have begun to record what they see as the particularities of our shared domestic space. This process of domestic documentation feels necessary to us but we have not settled on a form for the completed work.

Townley and Bradby

Image: Townley and Bradby, 'Daily Observation Series (1 Nov 2011)'. Pencil on paper.