By Bishop May Down –
This year at our Romp Around playdays we have enjoyed all sorts of outdoor play at the Bowling Green in Pollokshields; den building, giant inflatables, big messy painting, planting seeds, digging holes and of course the sensory joy of getting wet and dirty.
We get stuck in at Romp and embrace the fickle weather – when it’s sun one minute and freezing rain the next. Waterproofs are essential – not only for romping on wet grass, but it also makes magic moments possible, like last years rainbow paint slip n slide!
Romp Around is brilliant for families to come and experience child-led, loose parts free play, and it’s also a great space for artists to try stuff out. Last year, my friends MouthSounds – a self-described non-verbal vocal sounding collective – came to perform to the under 5’s at Romp. Performance art is a bit intimidating for everyone at first, but soon the kids realised they could play and interact with the performers, and they were obsessed. The performance became a playspace – because everything is a playspace at Romp!
In my own practice, I’m interested in making politically-engaged and social action work with young people. My project ELECTION, a pop-up political manifesto written and performed by children, premiered at the Edinburgh International Children’s Festival in 2025 and this year in Glasgow in collaboration with Platform and children from Greater Easterhouse. This project has been developed for upper Primary school (11-13 year olds), but I was really curious about what it means to do politically engaged work with very young children. I knew Romp was a perfect context to try this work out with under 5 year olds.
During a Mayday special playday I made cardboard placards with kids and their parents sitting down together on the grass to sketch out messages, colour them in and talk about what they meant. We also incorporated slogans and placards into our play – a small group of kids were building a house out of play bricks and mud, and I asked “Who is this house for?” They said, “Everyone!” and so we made a sign to put outside it that said “Housing for all!”
There was much hilarity with fake moustaches on babies, shouting as loud as you can, and using placards as toys. Whilst we were making, sharing and playing with our signs Ben from Homespun Yarns was singing folk songs about workers solidarity. Some of the words from the songs made there way onto our placards too: “Stand Together”, “Shout Louder”, “Solidarity Forever!”
I realised that what political engagement might look like for this age is exploring what it means to have a placard; to hold it, to use it as a sword, to shout out what it says, and to parade it around with your friends.