Playful Scenes

Hester Oerlemans designs game tables for De Tweesprong Elementary School in Leek

Dalton education system is a form of schooling imported from the United States during the course of the 20th century. Key features of the Dalton method are ‘freedom in restraint’, responsibility and self-reliance, but also intensive cooperation. A communal space at a Dalton School has a pivotal function: it is the place where social interaction occurs, where the focus is on pupils working together as well as on their development within a relative freedom. Here life in the school mirrors life outside, as it were. With the completion of the new building housing the communal space of the De Tweesprong Christian Elementary School, the idea soon arose to ask an artist to endow the space with a special significance. In cooperation with SKOR, the artist Hester Oerlemans (b. 1961), who lived in Arnhem until a few years ago but currently lives in Berlin, was invited to develop a plan. She immediately decided that the Dalton philosophy should play a leading role.
Lots of windows, a skylight, a ceiling of limited height and red linoleum on the floor give the new communal space an open, fresh and jolly appearance. Here people meet each other, talk, read, take a break, eat, drink and hang out. There is one object that always forms the basis for all these activities: the table. Hester Oerlemans has therefore taken this familiar object as the point of departure for her work of art. She quickly arrived at a number of clear principles: the space has to be multi-functional, it has to have a flexible arrangement and a dynamic look, but the most important principle has to be the provision of space for collective activities within a playful setting.

Table
Her proposal was to place four large game tables in the space: for air hockey, table football, snooker and billiards. The tables can all be covered with a transparent sheet. When the table games are not being played these covers, which are made of scratch-resistant perspex, can be used for eating, writing, reading, tinkering and endless messing around. The four large game tables are surrounded by eight tables for four to six pupils and eight tables for two to four pupils. Two board games are printed on the tops of the first set of smaller but very normal looking tables, while the other eight tables are printed with a single game each. The game pieces are stored in transparent plastic boxes placed in wheeled chests (for each game there are always two sets of pieces present). The games that can be played are Backgammon, Snakes and Ladders, Ludo, Barricade, Cluedo, Sudoku, Scrabble, Scotland Yard, Spooky Stairs, Stratego and Pirates. There are also possibilities for chess and Monopoly. In total there are thirty different games, each of which is accompanied by clear instructions. Pupils could also come up with their own ideas for games.
Between the various playing areas is a large perspex display table where all manner of self-made products and creative expressions by pupils can be displayed. All twenty-one tables can be sat at on eighty-one plastic bucket chairs in nine different colours (red, green, grey, two shades of yellow, soft orange and dark and light blue). Above the large game tables hang green, red and blue lamps strongly reminiscent of billiard table lamps. Four movable open bookcases and a closed games cupboard are also part of the art project. The cupboards can serve as dividing walls so that the communal space can be arranged flexibly. In this way pupils can also pursue their activities separately and in peace and quiet. The plastic covering sheets can be placed onto two trolleys.

Subtle disturbance of reality
The work of art in De Tweesprong is not recognisable as such at first sight. That applies to all of Hester Oerleman’s work, which regularly rubs up closely against everyday reality. It interferes in this reality in a light and inventive, playful and often somewhat absurd way. Since the mid-1990s she has created many works that set public space slightly on edge, roughing it up in a graceful and dynamic way. For several years she ran BAR SLECHT together with the artist Wilma Sommers. This mobile bar (transported in the hatchback of an old Mercedes and also unfoldable and removable) could be ordered anywhere and set alight many a soulless location with the aid of loud music, drinks and a lot of festive hubbub. Spooky Zoo was a travelling petting zoo that was set up at a lonely spot in the Hamburg harbour district and other places. Familiar animals like goats, chickens, geese and sheep were to be found there. What the animals had in common was that they were all white. People living in the neighbourhood became so attached to the white animals that they didn’t want the whole thing to depart again. In 1999 she made the Jukebox, which consisted of a little polyester building containing a built-in jukebox with 60 CDs, for the courtyard of the Calscollege, a secondary school in IJsselstein. The money that pupils pay to listen to their favourite tracks is used to purchase new, shared CDs. The work thus remains under the control of the pupils who are able to update the music selection continuously.
The work that Hester Oerlemans made for De Tweesprong is a logical continuation of this series. It functions optimally and appeals directly to the principles of the Dalton education system, yet at the same time it also plays with this reality. Playing together, and thus exploring the world and each other, taking and giving responsibility and linking these together, can be investigated, discovered and put into practice here by the pupils. The school’s directors have actively integrated the work directly in the curriculum, deploying it educationally for groups. Snooker and billiards have even been introduced as optional subjects.
During the inauguration of the work of art it appeared that several of the invited dignitaries looked at the world of games with envy, and as soon as they were given the chance they threw themselves upon the billiards and the air hockey. And that’s not to mention the table football! How will it fare with the teachers? Will they enter the arena with the pupils fairly or will they all just annex the table football?

David Stroband

Project data:
Artist: Hester Oerlemans
Client: De Tweesprong, Christian Elementary School for Dalton education
Location: Oldenoert 23/1, Leek
Completion: 2006