Date and Time

Thursday, Nov 17, 2022 - Saturday, Apr 8, 2023

9:00 — 5:00 pm

Location

Admission

Free

Share

< All Gallery 360 Exhibits

 

Play is not neutral. From the toys of childhood to cutting-edge gaming technologies, a sense of play delineates our relationship to both leisure and labor throughout our lives. Freighted with gender stereotypes and capitalist imperatives, the systems and objects of play can condition our behavior, catalyze creative expression, and help us understand ourselves in new ways.

For generations, artists have come to this rich, loaded, and knotty topic from many angles. They have created, appropriated, depicted, dissected, and upcycled ideas and objects that poke and prod at play. From Surrealism to Pop and beyond, artistic practice has consistently intersected with play to address understandings of disposable consumer culture, class struggles, and identity with both gravity and whimsy.

At Play presents work by five women artists navigating and untangling the tensions of play, paying particular attention to the society expectations placed upon women through these systems. Drawing on methods ranging from material exploration to emergent technologies, each artist grapples with the cultural impact of play as it permeates and mediates everyday life.

 

Artists:
Aimee Gilmore, Ani Liu, Department of Play, Ellie Richards, and Angela Washko

 

Organized by:
Juliana Rowen Barton, Director of the Center for the Arts with Anna Nasi ‘25, Gallery360 Manager and Curatorial Assistant (Fall 2022)

Explore the exhibition virtually:

Center for the Arts

Read the Center for the Arts' 2024 Year-in-Review

In 2024, our team used this mission to drive exhibitions, programs, and partnerships that prompt vital conversations across disciplines at the university and in the world.

February 3, 2025

Gallery 360

Boston Art Review | Fluid Matters, Grounded Bodies

Gallery 360 curator Juliana Barton gave Boston Art Review's art writing fellows a tour of “Fluid Matters, Grounded Bodies” and shared how she puts group exhibitions together from a museum education perspective.

July 16, 2024

Image shows a gallery attendee reading the wall text at Gallery360's 2023 exhibition "At Play."
Gallery 360

The Boston Globe | 'At Play'

Toys shape who we become. In “At Play” at Northeastern University’s Gallery 360, five women artists unpack the messages today’s toys send about society’s expectations for children.

March 8, 2023