May 01, 2008

The link claims to be about nightmare playgrounds, but it's really about those awful sculptures you sometimes see in said playgrounds. (Via Neil Gaiman's blog, as usual.)

Although the linked examples are all European and Russian, I have seen stuff like this in small towns here, usually made by a local and donated to the playground. Pretty sure I recall equally hideous mermaids and animals in my home town.

posted by tracicle 16 years ago
  • I love there - modern playgrounds have no personality.
  • there=these
  • Amazing. I find some of the pictures (the snails, the bears,) quite charming.
  • SMT, in the defense of tracicle, you must remember she's old and losing it there are some here that I've never seen before. and wish I hadn't. *shudders at the horror
  • In defense of tracicle- This is the new, hip, X-TREME MonkeyFilter, and we're not DOWN with your RULES, SMT. Werd.
  • Dawg, don't be gettin' all bizatchy! In defense of tracicle, I wasn't callin' her out.
  • The kid in the second photo has an enormous unit. Are we allowed to say that in the new Monkeyfilter?
  • Little too much "ha ha! those people are dumb because they're different from me!" and not enough "I wonder what the essential cultural differences are that lead to these sorts of playgrounds" for my taste.
  • Well, perhaps we can discuss that angle here.
  • After looking at so many of them, especially some that appear to be carved from wood, I found myself thinking, "the person making these obviously loves their craft". Yes, a lot of them do have a "strange" feel, but as TUM hinted at, they are full of a human touch that just doesn't exist in the pre-fabricated playground equipment of today. Any sculpture, whether "good" or "bad", is going to add a positive element to an environment where little kids with sponge brains are running around... IMHO, YMMV, Etc.
  • As it says in the comments, many of the Russian and eastern European sculptures are from their own fairy tales and stories, so they're probably not creepy to the children who play there. That said, I think any playground sculpture starts taking on some creepiness as it weathers and cracks and the paint runs or is defaced. Actually, my favourite one there is the moles/bears -- I think one comment says they're from Sweden? -- whose eyes light up when you sit on them. They reminded me a bit of the creatures in Spirited Away.
  • I imagine that in the US I would not be allowed to put my giant pig to play on. The entity that owns the park would fear getting sued if anyone was injured playing on or in my pig. So I don't think that the state of the legal system in the US would even allow for any of this to be possible.
  • And they can't be all bad - there's a monkey!
  • new Monkeyfilter I go for a day and this happens... did I miss a memo?
  • My mother always had a trump card for playground safety: as a child she watched a classmate die from a fall onto the cement floor of a basketball court, and wasn't afraid to tell us about it any time the horseplay got too rough.
  • Oh damn. I should have taken those bungee jumping lessons.
  • I could turn my baseball cap backwards, if that would help. Well, I mean I could GET a baseball cap and THEN turn it backwards.
  • roryk ftw, obvs.
  • I was thinking that some of these sculptures were indeed weird (like the crocodile cutlery massacre), but many were simply either cheap, or damaged by weathering (and Russia does have an extreme climate).