Mute Conversation
Conflicts are inextricably linked to human experience and often arise from frustrations resulting from a lack of understanding, recognition or communication.
The images created from observations of my twins' role-playing accentuate the ambiguity of communicative challenges in conflict situations in combination with sign languages. At the same time, the vibrant colours of childlike play evoke the transformative power of play by creating connections and exploring new paths of interaction and understanding. In a context of boundaries and conflict, a space is created that offers room for imagination, hope and resistance.
In this framework of child-led play, war is not seen as an inescapable reality, but as one of many possible play activities that allow children to engage with complex issues and explore alternative solutions and perspectives. Play thus becomes a space in which resilience is not only experienced but also explored, a reflective practice in a contextual framework that allows conflict and transformation to merge. In play, children's imagination also unfolds as an act of destabilisation of established realities, a manifestation of the monstrous in the realm of the possible, while children break through the shackles of everyday conventions and create new orders by creating new rules and patterns of interaction.
Similarly, the sign and body language that can be observed between children on playgrounds can be understood as a practice that breaks down boundaries within children's play. It functions as a means of communication and connection, an alternative form of exchange that operates beyond linguistic or cultural boundaries. Sign language establishes a form of understanding and exchange that is not constrained by traditional linguistic boundaries but enables a coded and symbiotic form of communication that bridges the differences between the actors. Sign language thus becomes a destabilising force that blurs the boundaries of communication and identity and emphasizes the resilience of human interaction.
Both children's play and art can be seen as unique and powerful expressions of human experience that have the ability to transcend boundaries and create new realities.