Rebuilding among the Chaos
Bindoong Play: Playwork Practice
Choi, Heong-uk
Director of Bindoongplay (South Korea)
Residency artist Rijksakademie
Symposium script for De appel in Amsterdam
INDEX
1. Introduction
● What is Bindoong Play
● Components of Bindoong Play
● How to Start: Building Up Process
2. Observations as a Playworker
● Pseudo-Play vs. Real Play
● When Children Explore New Tools: Two Pedagogical Perspectives
● Three Misunderstandings About Children’s Play
3.Conclusion
1. Introduction
What is Bindoong Play?
Bindoong Play focuses on re-designing and re-configuring children’s play time, play spaces,
and friendships.
BindoongPlay Mission statement:
● Return the vast outside world to children.
● Create a territory of freedom where they can experiment in their own rhythm and pace.
● Provide opportunities to make mistakes so they can learn to manage risks on their own.
● Build spaces through collaboration between artists and communities.
● Establish playworkers who can become good companions for children.
Components of Bindoong Play
Flexibility. Bindoong Play seeks to provide an environment where children can make their own choices, test the limits of their bodies, explore their abilities, and pursue a variety of possibilities.
Circulation. Every structure has its own life span, and children’s play is no different. We try to design circulation into play structures, finding ways to transform or renew them once they have reached the end of their initial life cycle.
Bricolage. Children play like magicians, shamans, or alchemists. They are highly skilled at dismantling and reassembling, transforming scattered parts into new contexts.
Playworker. To provide these kinds of exciting spaces, we must overcome many invisible obstacles. Without the hidden support of open-minded and trustworthy adults, it would be impossible. Playworkers are the core components of a Bindoong playground.
Agreements and Commitments
Often, adults unintentionally become the enemies of children’s play, disrupting it in the name of responsibility. Of course, adults have the duty to ensure children’s safety and healthy growth. But I believe children must also be given chances to explore new worlds at their own pace, without excessive supervision.
Through the workshops, we tried to help parents rediscover their children’s natural play abilities. Eventually, we reached a shared commitment: not to disrupt children’s play. Behind this, I had a hidden goal. By centering the parents’ group, I wanted to nurture volunteers who could later become playworkers. These playworkers, I believe, are essential
— they are the foundation of Bindoong Play.
Bindoong Play was never intended to create fancy playgrounds or landscaped parks. Our aim was to reinvent relationships within the community.
Keywords of Workshop Contents
The workshops were shaped around keywords such as:
● Sense of the body
● Open-ended modular structures
● Ambiguity and flexibility
● Self-driven experiences
● Creating space in one’s own way
● Appropriate materials and landscape
As an art educator, I observed and recorded children’s free play much like an anthropologist or archivist. I realized that children’s magical ways of playing are strikingly similar to the avant-garde strategies of the Situationists. Their concepts of dérive (wandering) and appropriation capture the essence of what children do in play.
Dérive. This is wandering without purpose — navigating, exploring, drifting. Children’s play often appears distracted, but I see distraction as essential to creativity. Most children who came to Bindoong Play for the first time did not start playing immediately. Instead, about 90% would wander, walk around, or observe from a distance. This was natural. The playground was unconventional, filled with strange structures, discarded materials, and murals. It looked unstable, even dangerous. So their first instinct was to navigate. I believe wandering without a set goal is an important process — not only with spaces but also with materials.
In typical art education classes, time is always short. Lessons must fit into a strict schedule. But Bindoong Playground was different: it offered children extra space and time to explore in their own way.
Appropriation. Normally, we think of appropriation — taking without permission — as something negative. But in cultural history, appropriation has often been natural, even necessary. For children, fixed functions of objects are meaningless. They transform things according to their own interests. This is what we might call “open-ended design.”
Public architecture and facilities are full of intended functions — safety rails, steps, benches, edges, furniture. But children often ignore these purposes. They climb over barriers, repurpose structures, and transform ordinary facilities into play. What frustrates supervisors and designers is often exactly what children find most creative.
During our workshops in a public auditorium, this became clear. Before we even began,some children started playing with wheeled chairs, rolling and pushing each other. Later, when we asked participants what moment was most memorable, they answered: “the wheeled chair play.” They forgot the organized activities but remembered the spontaneous
play.
As educators or playworkers, what should we do in such moments? The best response is patience — waiting calmly through the chaos. If children feel safe and free, that already means 90% of success. They do not need precise instructions. Once they are motivated, they don’t need programs at all.
One of my colleagues, a choreographer, once led children in walking through a public park. They played with rocks, railings, and theater steps. Facilities designed for safety or order became tools for exploration. Children weren’t following rules; they were testing limits out of curiosity.
This shows us that every fixed function — in architecture, in education, in objects — can be dismantled through play. For example, when I was a child, many parents encouraged us to learn the abacus to sharpen our minds. But we often used the abacus not for calculation, but as a kind of roller for improvised skating.
I believe this perspective applies to all kinds of spaces — parks, plazas, bike paths, even parking lots. For children, every construction can be reimagined and reconstructed through play.
2. Observations as a Playworker
Pseudo-Play vs. Real Play
From my experience as a playworker, I began to distinguish between what I call pseudo-play and real play. The two may look similar from the outside, but their essence and outcomes are very different.
Pseudo-Play
Done because someone else directs it, or used as a tool to reach a goal
An activity that consumes and exhausts
Only possible when others set it up
Temporary, mainly for stress relief
Leaves you feeling empty afterwards
Following fixed rules made by others
Something that can be taught by others
Quickly forgotten, leaves little trace
Real Play
Chosen freely, simply because you want to
An activity that is joyful and meaningful in itself
Planned and carried out by yourself
Continuous, accumulative, and grows deeper
Leaves you proud and satisfied afterwards
Creating and changing your own rules
Something no one else can truly teach
Lasts as meaningful and lasting memories
When Children Explore New Tools or Facilities: Two Pedagogical Perspectives
Through Bindoong Play, I often reflected on how adults guide children when they try new
tools or use institutional facilities. I came to see two very different pedagogical approaches:the Supervisor approach and the Playworker approach.
The Supervisor Approach
● Explains instructions step by step, from A to Z.
● Focuses on workshop and studio rules.
● Aims to minimize accidents at all costs.
● Is often preoccupied with protecting expensive tools and machines.
● Positions themselves as the knowledgeable authority above children.
● Rarely allows playful or “silly” experiments, or inefficient methods.
● Prioritizes facility management and order.
● This attitude can sometimes discourage children from actively using the facilities.
The Playworker Approach
● Minimizes direct guidance, letting children navigate independently.
● Focuses on the child’s own process of discovery
● Observes how children face risks and obstacles.
● Accepts that tools or machines may sometimes break in the course of experimentation.
● Admits they don’t know everything and explores “third ways” together with children.
● Believes that children learn deeply through mistakes and wrong turns.
These two pedagogies reflect different views of learning. Supervisors see themselves as protectors and experts, while playworkers see themselves as companions and co-learners.
Three Misunderstandings About Children’s Play
1. “Children these days don’t know how to play.”
Older generations often say that modern children have lost the ability to play compared to the past, when kids roamed through wild nature, fishing, building huts, camping, or exploring forests. But when we provide children today with the same opportunities — open nature, time, and freedom — they also play just as well.
The real difference lies not in the children, but in their environment. In earlier times, because parents were busy or resources were scarce, children had more unsupervised freedom.
Today, in wealthier societies, parents tend to over-supervise. As a result, children lack opportunities to explore, take risks, and even make mistakes in natural settings. What they need are chances to encounter the wild and to experience accidents and challenges —opportunities to get dirty, to fail, to rebuild.
2. “Playworkers or playground activists must prepare good programs.”
For over ten years, my team and I worked as teaching artists, running various education programs in classrooms, museums, and cultural centers. We became skilled at designing activities. But over time, I began to ask: What is truly ideal education?
I realized that sometimes the best teaching is to teach nothing. Instead of preparing programs, I prefer to create abundant environments and then step back. When children are motivated, scattered resources are enough. Some may hesitate at first, unsure of what to do in a strange new place. But as time passes, experiences layer and accumulate. Eventually, they no longer need direction.
Some visitors to Bindoong Play arrived with plans already formed: “Today I’ll make a wooden sword,” or “I’ll dig a hideout,” or “I’ll build a boat.” My role then was simple: observe and let them act.
As a playworker, I often used two strategies:
● Pretending to be busy. I would walk around, tidying materials, collecting scraps, or simply being present. My quiet presence offered reassurance without interference.
● Doing what I myself enjoyed. This is perhaps the best advantage of being both an artist and a playworker. I never felt bored. When I made something, children naturally gathered around, curious, asking, “What are you doing? Can I join?” My own playfulness inspired each others.
To volunteers, I always said: Don’t try to teach art. Just play like a child, with curiosity.
Financially, this work brought little benefit. It consumed my time and energy. But the fulfillment I felt — as both an educator and an artist — was more than enough.
3. “Without rules, how can we deal with bullying, violence, or risky behavior?”
Conflicts are inevitable, because play happens on the ground, in reality. Children may act impulsively, but I noticed something important: children who play freely without constant supervision often develop stronger self-discipline.
Let me share some stories.
● Fire play. In one demonstration playground, parents donated straw for bonfires. At first, adults were nervous. But we had promised an environment of freedom with minimal interference. Some 12-year-old boys became deeply absorbed in tending the
fire. One colleague stood by with an extinguisher, ready for safety. Suddenly one boy said:“Teacher, don’t you trust us? I can feel the wind direction. It’s blowing the other way, so I’m keeping the fire safe.” In that moment, we realized the children were more
aware and capable than we expected.
● Height challenge. On a modular wooden structure, a bold 13-year-old boy jumped down from 2.5 meters and succeeded. Later, a 10-year-old wanted to try. I worried, knowing his impulsive nature. He climbed up, hesitated, and finally stepped down. In that hesitation, he recognized the real danger and chose self-restraint. That decision itself was a sign of maturity.
● The zipline company. Parents and children built a rough zipline together. Many kids wanted turns, and conflict seemed likely. But instead, the children organized themselves. They formed a “company,” with roles: one helped children climb, another pushed, another pulled the rope back. They even built an office with straw blocks, decorated it, and shared snacks. They turned potential conflict into cooperative play.
These experiences taught me that freedom does not lead to chaos. With trust and space, children often find their own ways to manage risk and conflict.
Conclusion
One day I saw a photograph from the Syrian war: children swimming and laughing in a pond that had formed in a bomb crater. The image struck me deeply. It reminded me of my father’s generation after World War II, when Korea gained independence from Japan but immediately became a battlefield of the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States. Our entire country was left in ruins.
For a long time, people believed that children’s play was useless, while the work of adults was productive. But what do we call productive? Is it financial business, trading, tariff wars, weapons development, energy exploitation, bureaucratic systems, or military expansion? Often, these so-called serious and productive activities of adults bring destruction and instability to the planet.
Children’s play, in contrast, may seem unproductive or useless, yet it carries an entirely different power. Play embodies resilience, optimism, and the ability to live fully in the present moment. It dismantles the rigid dichotomy between what is considered “productive” and what is considered “useless.”
Play is not wasted time. It is a form of life
itself, full of meaning and potential,
even in the ruins.
I believe that in children’s play we can find a radical perspective — one that challenges the seriousness of adult logic and instead suggests another way of being in the world. Play is not wasted time. It is a form of life itself, full of meaning and potential, even in the ruins.
