Knitted Wonderlands

You may have seen the works of Japanese-born, Nova Scotia-based artist Toshiko Horiuchi MacAdam before (I know I've posted some pictures of her work on this blog's Facebook page as shares), without getting a chance to learn more about the artist behind them. Architecture News Daily offers us an excellent interview with Horiuchi MacAdam, who talks about how she came to focus on designing knitted playgrounds for children. She had been questioning the meaning and the value of the work she was doing, and then:

One day I was exhibiting a 3-dimensional open-work textile sculpture I had created in collaboration with a friend. Some children came to the gallery and climbed into it. Suddenly the piece came to life. My eyes were opened. I realized I wanted just such a connection between my work and people alive at this moment in time (not a hundred years from now). I realized I was in fact making works for children. It was an exciting moment for me.

I should say so. Judging from the pictures of her wonderful installations, the Japanese children who are fortunate enough to be able to play in Horiuchi MacAdam's knitted playground are able to have as much fun as they might at Chuck E. Cheese or Disneyland, with the all-important difference that the adults who accompany them or who pass through the park for their own purposes can actually enjoy the visual feast spread before them instead of having to feel like they're enduring some kind of aesthetic hell.





Horiuchi MacAdam at work on a knitted sculpture. Amazingly, her playgrounds are almost entirely handmade, although she does incorporate some mechanically knotted nets.






You can see photos and video of Horiuchi MacAdam's work in the above video, and also visit NetPlayWorks to view more of her work. Until recently, Horiuchi MacAdam's playgrounds had all been installed in Japan, but in 2012 she completed one in a municipal park in Zaragoza, Spain (and yes, it was certified compliant with European safety standards for children's play structures), and she and her husband Charles MacAdam are currently developing projects for Canada and the United States. I'm kind of hoping she does one for Canada. Adults would get to play on it too if they go during school hours or after bedtime, right?