Luke

Playworker Luke Sutton reflects on playworking in the US vs. the UK and what it’s like to have a documentary filmmaker on your play site. 

Playwork is the podcast for people who love play. Erin, Morgan and Maayan are play advocates, collaborators and friends. Each episode of Playwork features their candid interviews with playworkers, teachers, play theorists, parents, and more doing the (literally) dirty work of creating spaces for play. More at PlayworkPodcast.com

Transcript

LUKE:   0:00
So I'm doing a pop up in a community and its in north Wales, and it's in like the depths of winter. So it's freezing, it's cold, it's raining on. There's myself and two other play workers and we both all all mail. And there was only one little girl that came out to the project that day on what she wanted to do was play tag, be chased around, but we have to count to 30. We're like, OK, anything else And she said yes. She said, You're not allowed to run after me. You're only allowed to skip.

LUKE:   0:32
Oh, and you have to link arms. We're like, Oh, all right then And she went off on. We counted to three and then the three of us skipped through the dark after this little girl and what is sometimes a pretty scary community. But like nothing happened because because everyone just knew that that was us. And that was placed game because a lot of work had been put into developing a playful culture and trust in the project. We never did catch her.  

MAAYAN:   1:09
Was she lost forever?She'd been dead for 60 years! [Laughter]

ERIN:   1:23
One two one two.  We've been sitting on this for so long. We should just... We just gotta let it go, Okay?  

MORGAN:   1:38
Okay.  

ERIN:   1:38
So we are back. This is the play work podcast. We haven't been here in... I'm gonna say... it may be... I'm not going to say how long. It might have been a year,  

MORGAN:   1:47
A little while.

ERIN:   1:47
It might not have been a year, but it might have been. We literally don't know because we lost track. It's been so long, but the point is because we just want it to be so good that we're letting perfectionism stand the way of making information available. And today we say: no more! We're not letting perfectionism stand in the way. And we are sharing this interview with Luke Sutton, playworker at The Land featured in The Land documentary, making it available. And we wanted to talk to Luke because he's one of the few play workers who has this deep experience in an English adventure playground and has come to the U. S. and, like, applied that work in American Adventure place sites, including The Yard on Governors Island in New York City and Eureka Villa in Santa Clarita, California.  

MORGAN:   2:38
Yeah, I love the way that he talks about this. It's so practical because he said a lot of experience, like, doing playwork on different kinds of sites now in different countries. But he's very, like, intellectually curious. All of these large ideas and how it fits together and combines.  

ERIN:   2:55
Yeah, totally. He goes big really easy. Okay, here's our conversation with Luke Sutton, play worker at the land. Okay, cool. You want to say anything about our hiatus?  

MORGAN:   3:08
Um, we refuse to feel guilty.  

ERIN:   3:10
That's right. Don't feel bad about it.   

MORGAN:   3:19
Actually we feel terrible [laughter]

ERIN:   3:19
One thing I would just say is that if you are someone who was, like, maybe some part of you was delighted to see another episode of this, please shoot us an email so that we know you're listening. And we know this is useful to you, so let us know if you're into it. Hello. At playworkpodcast dot com. Okay, here's our conversation with Luke Sutton. 

LUKE:   3:48
Everyone just like fire a question off me then.

MORGAN:   3:51
So you're you're currently working in Santa Clarita? Eureka Villa You? Before that, you were in New York. Um, but before that, where were you?

LUKE:   4:01
Before that? I'd spent five years working at the land in North Wales.

ERIN:   4:07
The Land just is the cream of the crop.

LUKE:   4:10
Yeah, it's a very lucky project in terms of the fact that it's a space that's been able to copy and paste every piece of playwork theory like straight into practice. Not every piece, obviously.  Each project has its own limitations, but more so than most.

ERIN:   4:26
Were you there the beginning? Were you one of the initial hires?

LUKE:   4:28
Yes, because we ran a pop up play project on the space for around, I mean, Claire had developed the community into a very playful community over the course of around eight years. But by the time I was employed, we'd round pop up regularly there for around 6 to 8 months. That's when the fence came up. So the playful culture on the project itself was already established. The only difference was we didn't have to take everything down at the end of each day.

ERIN:   4:58
I mean, a lot of people see The Land and they say, OK, I want that.  And I wonder if when you guys started you had "that" in mind. Was there a goal in mind or what was? How did it get from A to B?

LUKE:   5:13
I mean, when it was started, I know that Claire didn't have any sort of pre conception as to what the space would look like the fence was put up on. And it just evolved. The time that you came out, Erin, I think The Land had existed for around two years, so it's constantly evolved since then. The people that see The Land, they want to re create it. I suppose you have to. You have to certainly give up any sort of expectations for outcomes or goals. Or where the play's gonna go, how the play's gonna look and how the space is gonna like evolve. There were, like, an infinite amount of baby steps to get to that point on developing a play project. It doesn't just happen, whether it be The Land or another adventure playground or doing a pop up. Something like Suzanna [Law] always says is "baby steps." Do what you can each point but don't like over exert. You know, baby steps.  

MAAYAN:   6:12
I guess for our listeners who are not as familiar with the adventure playground scene in the UK, for example, or, more broadly, how, like. How does The Land stand out from other provisions? Like, how do you... when you say that they are able to implement all of the playwork ideals, or whatever it was that you said, Um, where do you see that not happening in other places? Without sort of naming names or pointing fingers, but, like, how does it fall apart in other places that doesn't fall apart of The Land?  

LUKE:   6:46
I mean, that can answer that question. But I don't know if you want to use the material from that question. What do you mean would it like upset other projects?

MORGAN:   6:55
I think that that's a very fair line of questioning that doesn't like throw any provision under the bus right, because it's like, ah, lot of places especially, I don't know about especially, but like a lot of places in the U. S. Like have to accept certain compromises or else they just can't open. Um, and that's nothing against like them or their work. That's, you know they're doing play work in, like navigating that.

LUKE:   7:19
I think it's one of the striking...

MORGAN:   7:20
...like it's...

LUKE:   7:21
...Sorry. It's one of the strengths that I've noticed of international projects, certainly in the U. S., that I've experienced is the the playwork projects are being birthed in spaces like The Land. They're not being created, like as purely as they possibly could. But they're finding ways to exist within the cracks of adult order, like whether it be in a school or on Governors Island or as a part within a zoo, or is a part of another project so innately through being a part of something else... They're these projects and the people, like amazing people involved in them, are recognizing the limitations of how much they can implement, but then also for recognizing that limit their able to slowly push it.

ERIN:   8:03
You and Morgan both have all this experience in the UK, and you're doing this work in the U. S. I think there's this assumption that it's somehow different to playwork in the U. S. And with both of you guys here, I feel like we have to address that like, Is American culture unique in some way that makes play work harder or more impossible or less impossible or more interesting or different. Is it different anyway? Or is it the same or something in between?  

MORGAN:   8:33
You ready to make some large, problematic sweeping statements?    

MORGAN:   0:00
Get ready to generalize!  [laughter]

ERIN:   8:42
I mean, that's what everyone you know! Everyone says, Oh, well, that's in England. They've got universal health care here. Everyone's, you know, so uptight. And...

LUKE:   8:49
There is that conversation that's had a lot more. But I haven't come across that being an issue. Yeah, I don't think this is a reflection of American culture. More development of like my own playwork practice but I talk a lot more with parents now. And I work a lot harder because I used to be terrible advocating, advocating in any way and talking to parents. I remember the first time that Andy Andy Hinchcliffe came a visit at the land on my head.

MAAYAN:   9:18
Oh, no. Okay, You cut out of Andy Hinchcliffe. Don't worry. I remember the first time that Andy...

LUKE:   9:22
that's a good, he's a good cliffhanger. Okay, I remember the first time that and he came to the land. I hid. I genuinely hid because he came with some students and I was just terrified and terrible at dealing with adults in any sort of way. Because I just like for some, like, adolescent reason I just, like, demonized all adults. I don't know. I guess I was some sort of stupid exception.

MORGAN:   9:46
So I actually, I was the same. I mean, I didn't hide from Andy specifically, but I really...

LUKE:   9:52
You should try it out!

MORGAN:   9:52
I should, I mean, I'm sure I have since [laughter] but, um but no, I  really resented the presence of any adults on site other than the team and like and I was very skeptical, even about like, new members of the team. Like I just was very protective, um, of that feeling, I think and I think that that's also well, that was also encouraged by a lot of the playworkers that I was working with. That kind of like "nobody gets the kids like we get the kids." And there is some truth to that. Like, I think that that there are benefits from being so protective that we get to see things that that the presence of other adults would preclude. But then you miss this like huge advocacy piece, you know, it's a trade right? And it means that like there's a lot of kids that you'll never see because their parents still believe that, like, that place is for the bad kids or whatever it might be like, whatever the barriers are.  And that that it was a really hard thing for me to come around on. It's something I still struggle with.

LUKE:   0:00
Yeah, me too.   

ERIN:   11:00
So living in the U S., doing playwork here. What are you thinking about all the time? Like at the end of the day and you're like, "I want to talk about with somebody," you know what I mean? Like, what's on your mind, what do you chewing on these days? Being the reflective, like smart, super experienced... 

LUKE:   11:20
Stop  

ERIN:   11:21
...international documentary superstar that you are? 

LUKE:   11:29
Hm, I'm, I just Okay, so I think this is best illustrated by my favorite interaction I had with an adult in New York. So the parents aren't allowed onto that space, which for that project works because on the weekend there could be anywhere up two or 300 kids on that space, which, as it with it being a destination, they tend to have families with them so they can be like 600 are adults and she just don't want them on the space. So there was this child using a saw. The parent was shouting at them, whatever, something stupid. And so my first intervention is to like walk and just to break that line of sight, just like adulterate the adult, just a walk in between the parent and the child. But then she kept going. So I interacted with the parent and says, You know, "what's up?" And she said, "Look, she's gonna cut a finger off. " Well, actually, that's not true. What she said was, "are the saws sharp?" I said, "Well, yeah, of course the saws are sharp." It would be pretty cruel to just give you a bunch of blunt saws and said, "Have at it suckers," you know that's not so... I said, "Yeah, the saws are sharp." Then she said, "But she's gonna cut a finger off."  So I said, "Mom, worst worst case scenario. She's gonna graze her finger. Maybe there'll be a bit of blood, but she'll be all right. And then she'll adapt how she's interacting with that saw and do it differently." She isn't gonna cut her finger... and then continue cutting her finger... through the flesh of her finger through the bone and threw the flesh on the far side, look a bloody stump and go, "Oh, darn! How did this happen?" So the mom just kind of, like, hung her head a little bit and was like she was like, "Yeah, yes, I guess you're right." So I guess my response for the initial question was that I guess [I wish] more people knew that those, like, instinctive "Oh, don't do that" responses aren't necessary. The kid isn't gonna cut their finger off. They're not going to smash their thumb with a hammer till it's, like, useless. They're not gonna break their legs. They're all right if they, like, run a little bit. Thankfully, usually they, so far, they have all been all right.

ERIN:   14:07
You can have a certain level of confidence in that because you are so intimately familiar with the space. And you know that the rope is risk assessed and you know that you hung on it this morning and it's not gonna break us and that you pulled on the branch and it's not gonna break. So you've been through, you know, you have more information than them.  

MORGAN:   14:25
Well, I think also a lot of parents especially in the US, aren't used to seeing professionals interact with children in this way. Like I think that they often like, really underestimate, like the level of training required or the level of expertise like the practitioners have, um, or like the amount of thought that goes into a place that looks this casual.

LUKE:   14:47
I struggle. I think I struggle with these sort of questions because, like I started doing playwork when I was 17.  So I've been very, this has just been my norm for like, however many years now, so. Sometimes I struggle to put myself out of it and, like see, those things as things that not everyone believes.

ERIN:   15:03
So you. So this sort of speaks to what you were saying earlier about how your something that's different now, and maybe it's because it's the U. S. And maybe it's just because of how your playwork has evolved. But you are talking to parents more. Do you have a message? You know what I mean? Is there something that you say every time that you just want to broadcast more broadly? 

LUKE:   15:27
"They'll be all right," is usually what I like, I say that a couple times, regardless of what the situation is, all if their kids are playing or they're not playing or how far away they are, they'll be all right. They'll be all right.

ERIN:   15:40
Yeah, okay. I want to circle back to the film and how this all started and why we even know you in in the first place, Luke. For people who are listening, they might know Luke if they've seen the land of the adventure play documentary and you deliver a line that gets a laugh every single time, Luke, which I think really illuminates your play work approach and what I've learned from from you specifically, though briefly, for context, Luke and Dave are hanging a giant swing. It's actually a piece of traditional play work equipment they strung a rope through. Then you're hanging it. I mean, Dave's like 30 feet puppetry, probably in Europe. The bottom kind of like holding it while he secures it because it's up to your chest. I mean, it's tall.

LUKE:   16:19
Yeah, I'm six foot four. (Film excerpt: Male voice: Can you tell me what you're doing real quick? LUKE: Putting swing up with one of these. It's a bit different different and we're putting it high as well. Higher than normal swing. Plus the rope stretches. Gives it some slack so it should last longer." Male Voice: "Now, how are the kids gonna get in this?" LUKE: "I dunno. They'll find a way. We've gotta make sure we don't build what we want to build. We've got to make sure we build with the child in mind.") 

ERIN:   17:03
Does anybody know what lane up I'm talking about?

LUKE:   17:04
Is it that I have no idea how these kids are gonna get in this swing we've just put up? [laughter]

ERIN:   17:09
Yeah. Eric asked you, "How are the kids gonna get into this?" And you say, "I don't know."

LUKE:   17:16
I don't know. They'll find a way.

ERIN:   17:18
That's all you say. I wonder if you could just sort of take us back to that time when I showed up, what you guys sort of thought about filming on the playground. Did you do a risk assessment then? And just tell us a little bit about how the filming did or didn't affect the play? Some of your initial thoughts.

LUKE:   17:44
Have you got, like, a flashback sound effect? [harp sound indicating flashback]  If there was a risk benefit assessment written, it wasn't written by myself because I was still very much a novice of playworker.

MORGAN:   18:01
because you would have said No,

LUKE:   18:02
I would have just hid! but the camera's definitely affected play.  

ERIN:   18:07
How do you think it affected things?

LUKE:   18:09
Well, for one, the documentary as a final product, there's like two or three moments that you can see the children look at the camera and obviously that they wouldn't have done that if the camera wasn't there. And there's a couple times one child asks Eric to move out of the way. When Ethan claims that tree that was the first time he'd ever claimed that tree. And I don't doubt that he did that because there was some very cool cameras watching him.

ERIN:   18:39
Yeah, Interesting.

MORGAN:   0:00
Interesting. 

MAAYAN:   18:43
As such. Do you think that it, um, it was, ah, thing that enabled them to play in different ways that they hadn't been able to before? Would you say that it like, like, sort of collapsed, the sort of the play bubble in that way that like that? Like they were, they were putting on a show. And so it wasn't sort of true play like authentic? Like authentic, authentic? Yeah.

LUKE:   19:06
Mmm. I think there was, there was, there was, there's a degree of the kids playing up in acting out in front of the camera because suppose a child's relationship with media is you act in front of a camera to get some whatever it is they want to get. But I think the filming play and playwork is a necessary evil, depending on who's doing it in the context. Like if there's an adult that has no playwork training, no relationship with the staff, no context as to what's going on that's storming across the space to take 27 photos of her child on the swing. And then it's never gonna look at those photos again. I'm not gonna hide from the adult, right? But when it's a trained professional, that has, as a concept, an idea and a cursory knowledge of play work that's recording the play for a purpose. And since, like after you, you and the crew left for those two weeks like that was, that was it. Like it was gone. Its only since traveling and since visiting all these other projects that I've seen the impact that the film has had. I've seen how brilliant that impact has been and how, like many different projects and different non initially non-playful adults, how brilliant a tool it's been in illustrating play  and playwark's, like, core theories. [Pause]

ERIN:   20:39
Mmm. You cut out a brilliant [laughter]

LUKE:   20:45
Need there be anymore? [laughter]

MAAYAN:   20:50
Um, I mean, is it just the people know the word playwork at all? Or is it something else?

LUKE:   20:55
Yeah. I mean, for the people that have seen it, people know what playwork is. It's kind of like a an odd paradox, in a way, because they've given this view and concept of playwork. And then they have to let that go in order to do it. Because you can't recreate The Land.  Every project is different yada yada yada. But you have to have that idea, like, initially to be able to let go of it.

ERIN:   21:23
Do you have a favorite playwork reading? Or favorite playwork, text or document?

LUKE:   21:31
I'm gonna go from Magical Playscapes by Frost and Talbot.

ERIN:   21:35
I don't know that.  Morgan, do you know that?  

MORGAN:   21:39
I didn't hear it clearly.  I just made an impressed looking face and hoped it wouldn't come up. [laughter] What? What did you recommend?

LUKE:   21:49
Frost and Talbot. Magical Playscapes. 

MAAYAN:   21:51
No, I don't. No,

LUKE:   21:53
No? It's around 16 pages long. You can just google it and it's there.

MORGAN:   21:58
Does playwork change the way you travel?  

LUKE:   22:01
Yeah, I think it does change the way that I've traveled. It gives you a lot of patience. I think, play like I've had... I've slept on the streets of Nagasaki and I've slept on the streets of Bogota.  Because playwork is so unpredictable, I think I can roll with the punches pretty well because of my playwork experiences.

ERIN:   22:23
Um, it seems like you take to this really naturally. It's a good fit. I remember Dave saying, you know, it's kind of talking about it all in the same way. And he's like, "I just feel like I landed on my feet here" and, like, it just seems like such a solid fit for you. So true or false? Then I have more to say.  

LUKE:   22:39
Yes.

ERIN:   22:40
But it still must stretch you right? It's not like like, you know, you're not... I also say when I'm at screenings like these aren't just the most chilled out people ever, and they happen to work at this place. Like what's, like, an actual real thing that that you've learned that you've had to, like, incorporate into who you are that you weren't just inherently. 

LUKE:   23:00
I had to learn how to say no. I have to learn how to be alright watching kids do stuff I wasn't personally comfortable with and had to learn how to advocate.

ERIN:   23:15
So when do you say no? Because people perceive you as someone who always says yes.

LUKE:   23:18
Yeah, that's one of the playwork 101 misconceptions to shoot down because we're not just there to say yes to all the kids all the time often, I don't know. A good example is when a kid says, Luke, will you build this den for me? No, I'm not gonna build them for you because then it'll be my damn fort.

MORGAN:   23:41
So you found playwork really young. You're saying 17. Um, but it's the only job I've heard you mention having so you seem pretty like... lifestyle [laughter] like you're pretty full time.

LUKE:   23:58
I've done like one or two things. Like I've worked in a bar, a bit. I worked on a nature reserve in Colombia for a short while. I worked in a hostel in Mexico, but playwork just won't let me go.

MORGAN:   24:10
Was there? Was there a moment when you when you knew

LUKE:   24:14
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. It was a June, maybe June 14th the 16th of like 2012. Something like that. I went to a playwork forum. It was the first time that I met Stuart Laster. He gave a keynote speech and I'd never even heard of his name beforehand. But he just gave a keynote speech that just, like I've got goose bumps now just thinking about it, because before then, like I known some of the cool theories and I'd had some practice doing it, But it was very basic. It was a job. I enjoyed doing it blah, blah, blah. But the moment that I heard Stuart Lester talk and give this keynote speech, you know it just made me realize how enchanting play can be and how important and magical is. And then it was just like that moment. I went to his workshop afterwards and I'm still doing playwork.  

MORGAN:   25:16
We should include a link to one of Stewart's things. Um, any recommendations?

MORGAN:   25:23
Specifically, Uh, what's the one he did in 2008 with Wendy.

MORGAN:   25:29
It wasn't play for a change in, was it?  

LUKE:   25:32
Yeah.

MORGAN:   25:32
Okay. We'll do that one.

ERIN:   25:35
Well, thank you so much, Luke.

LUKE:   25:37
Thanks for having me on.  

ERIN:   25:40
You're such an inspiration.

LUKE:   25:43
Okay [laughs]

MORGAN:   25:46
That was a very British reaction.  [laughter] It was like, Aw, shucks. [musical break]

ERIN:   26:09
What's it like for you listening back to Luke, is there a takeaway?

MORGAN:   26:12
I'm just thinking about what an interesting person he is. Um, and grateful that said, he answers our call.  

ERIN:   26:23
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. One of my favorite things that I've read about playwork is from Luke's Blog. Actually, it's a post called The Beauty in a Lie in which he there's a soccer game happening, and he ends up playing for both teams. But the kids don't realize it for quite a while. Uh, check it out. The beauty of a lie. There will be a link on our website. You know, like a lot of people get good at play work because they learn from other play workers because they study and reflect and, um It's almost like Luke was inoculated or something, you know, when he was young. It's like, Do you think it's more innate in him than it is in other people?  

MORGAN:   27:08
I wonder about it because I mean, there's something kind of magical about finding this work at 17. Like he literally was never an adult without it. Yeah, um, I mean, and I feel like there's still... not that he's free of this unlearning work that we all have to do having been  raised in the society, which has these views of children and what they're capable of and all of that all of that stuff. But he never quite like, crossed over.

ERIN:   27:36
Crossed over from where to where?

MORGAN:   27:40
I talk a lot with people who find play work after, like, a significant amount of time in education or people who already parents and like at first they often feel like there's this... There's this whole language for stuff that they're super into things that they always intuitively knew. But then there also comes a point where they have to critically think about some of the things they've already done that they would now never do again. And why they have to, like, reconcile themselves to that. And I just think there's something really interesting about a person who was never an adult without those ideas. Without that language. And especially when he talks about, um that, like deep skepticism of adults, I wonder if that's part of how that played out for him.  

ERIN:   28:28
If you want to follow Luke on Instagram he's @SuttonLuke40. You can see all of his travels. He's always getting somewhere. Thanks again for listening to the Playwork podcast. Our website is play work podcast dot com. If you like this show and you want to hear more, please email us and let us know you're listening at Hello at play work podcast dot com. Thanks, Morgan.  

MORGAN:   28:53
Thank you.  

MORGAN:   28:53
Bye.