Nature Play Week 2025

By Cat Sewell

The two strands of nature and play stitch together so much of what we do at Polyglot. We honour and celebrate nature through the thematic explorations in our work. We consider nature as we create and share our work, and we revel in the joy of watching children engage with, play in and connect to nature.

Our office sits on the grounds of Abbotsford Convent, and I regularly take a breather to  walk around the gardens and along the Birrarung (river). It energizes and grounds me and allows space for creative thoughts and ideas. As I walk this morning, I’m musing on some recent Polyglot moments that weave together play and nature.

L: When the World Turns. Photo: Sarah Walker. R: FLOAT at MPavilion. Photo: William Hamilton-Coates.

In February, we premiered Art Tree, a calm and inviting Play Space where children and families create and decorate with natural materials inside a co-designed forest. It was so wonderful to see people stay for so long; we discovered Art Tree could offer respite and quiet within the busiest festival precinct. Participants really dropped in and connected. They drew animal tracks all over the paper ground, wound string around leaves and gum nuts and hung them, collectively.

L: Art Tree. Photo: Sarah Walker. R: When the World Turns. Photo: Theresa Harrison.

This very weekend, on the other side of the globe, we have the North American premiere of When the World Turns at Lincoln Center in New York for Big Umbrella Festival. It is a huge privilege and makes my fingers tingle to be able to share this with audiences that are so far away yet so similar in heart and humanity to our Australian audiences. There, a beautifully lit, darkened room is filled with live plants that children and their families can smell and touch and feel as they go on a theatrical journey.

And soon I’ll be stepping back into further creative development for Forest, a new theatrical work set outside in a real forest. In this space we get to listen, we get to look closely, and we get to wonder and marvel at what we find. We welcome children in, to learn from them how to explore with curiosity and playfulness, but also facilitate new connections with nature, ecosystems, land, trees.

This Nature Play Week I wish for all of you, wherever you may be, a moment of playful connection with our natural world; simple, beautiful and worth celebrating.

Forest. Photos: Claudia Sangiorgi Dalimore, 2024.