What is Mucking About?

Using the question "What is Mucking about?" (as posed in The Little Red Schoolbook, Hansen and Jensen,1969) as a jumping off point this workshop will explore how artists integrate and navigate risk, chaos, autonomy and trust in the spaces they share and create with children and young people.

We will ask how we enter children and young peoples spaces as artists and meet the energies present rather than fighting them. We will dig into how our own experiences and values influence the ways we work with children and young people asking where this is a strength and where it might be creating tensions. We will also do some mucking about.

This session will be a relaxed space with a combination of presentation, discussion, reflection and practical activity.

Max Alexander also known as Play Radical is a play worker, artist, writer, educator and all round inclusive play advocate and enthusiast. Max’s work centers play and connection with a particular focus on autistic, neurodivergent and disabled experiences. Max has worked with children and young people (and occasionally adults) with a wide range of interests, needs and abilities for over a decade across adventure playground, community, educational, social care, arts and theater settings. Max creates and co-creates spaces for play using a mix of his skills as a maker, visual artist and facilitator. Max's experience as a autistic person is an integral part of his work.

Exploring creative and accessible approaches to knowledge sharing and exchange is a core part of Max's practice. Max has several publications and resources available at www.playradical.com including "The Joys and Shapes of Autistic Play" which introduces Max's "Autistic Play Shapes" and "A Playful Manifesto" an illustrated call to play.

Outside of his practice as Play Radical Max is also a poet, creator of many many drawings, stick connoisseur and wrestler in training.

Strange Exchange Forum is a series of free creative workshops for and by artists working with alternative art education and creative learning. Each artist will lead a session that draws connections to the library, sharing insight into their research and practice, asking what it means to learn and teach as an artist.

We are based at 62 Moncur St, Glasgow G40 2SB.

This is a container space opposite the Pipe Factory and next to BAad. You can find us on the second floor, to the right of the staircase. The space is fully wheelchair accessible via a lift to the right of the main entrance and there is an accessible, gender neutral toilet.

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