Radiococo Broadcast #30
without speech and without haste
In April, when it still snowed every day up north in Kiruna, we ran three workshops with three groups of students. The theme was creating speculative tools for exploring. We (my teammates and I) were a group of explorers who travelled 20 hours by train to Kiruna. We were new to the city and needed the students’ help to create tools and devices for our temporary explorer base. We will return again in 2 weeks (mid May) to build an outdoor play sculpture based on the insights we got from the workshops!
Some of the students were bilingual, and communication was a breeze. But most of them didn’t really speak English; I barely managed with my Swedish, and a small group of them were newcomers to Sweden and its language. But we still managed, relying on our two Swedish translators and a lot of gestures, Swedish, and drawings.
It has been a while since I last worked directly with kids. I love how universal play is and how we adults call it play, but it is very serious work for them. They work so intuitively, not questioning the process but letting the materials and hands lead the way. So often we step in and ask–“what are you making? ” ,“Ooooh, what is this?” and they respond as a matter-of-factly: “Jag vet inte” (I don’t know). But they get there! They don’t care that they don’t know yet; they trust, they make, they tell their explorer story.
In the classroom, a gathering of desks. Chairs aside, cardboard boxes in a stack. Tape, cable ties, cardboard circles, encircling friends and new faces. Wandering. Objects displayed, transformed, invented. Doing, showing, pointing–without speech Cutting, glueing, taping–without haste. Pancake ants, camera helmet, x-ray vision goggles. 3-legged alien-looking precarious thing, backpack with solar panels. Pieces of cardboard grow into an animal, a house, a clock tower. Then, wearing it, evolving into a cardboard explorer. Scanning with antennae, keeping boxes of treasures. More tape, over and under. Surrounding. Surrendering, figuring out together.
A belated April broadcast, but a special one to celebrate 3 years (🥲) of Radiococo Imagination Station! Thank you, thank you, thank you for being here 🫶
Loved this one.