Children from a London youth club have designed a bouncy castle housed in Battersea Park on weekends as part of an art exhibition.
The exhibition at the Pump House Gallery builds on the 2013 project The Committee, in which Finnish artist Pilvi Takala gave a £7,000 Emdash Award grant to children from a youth centre in Bow, giving them free reign on how to spend it.
The Five Star Bouncy House is the colourful, inflatable, bouncy outcome of the project, which they hoped could be rented out to make money for their youth club.
However the Eastside Youth Centre has since sadly closed, and the storage and hire of the bouncy castle as such became an issue. Martin King, who used to run the children’s centre, hires out the bouncy castle in his spare time and uses the proceeds to fund children’s projects in East London.
In video interviews, the children talk about their democratic decision-making process, and their aim to create something permanent for people to have fun with.
The Pump House Gallery aims to put collaboration and participation at the heart of its programme, something the children have helped with in the creation of their Five Star Bouncy House.
The Five Star Bouncy House will be blown up on weekends until 26th March, when the weather permits. The rest of the exhibition runs Wednesday to Sunday from 11am-4pm. Queries regarding hire can be made via [email protected]
