TŶ PAWB’s latest exhibition is here and organisers are delighted with the feedback.

PLAY-WORK centres on the relationship between adults and children, and on celebratory documentation of radical playwork since the 1970s at Wrexham’s world-renowned adventure playgrounds.

Launched in time for the summer holiday, hundreds attended it's opening over the weekend.

Jo Marsh, arts leader for Wrexham Council and leader of the Arts Programme at Tŷ Pawb said: “There’s always been a good relationship between the arts service and the play service in Wrexham, we’re both doing things that are quite outside the box for most council departments.

“We wanted to create something that would really shine a spotlight on the amazing adventure playgrounds that we have here in Wrexham because it’s surprising that a lot of people don’t realise that locally we’ve got this reputation for excellence.

“We have worked with artists, staff at Tŷ Pawb and playworkers to construct this big, interactive installation which is playable.

“We’ve got pallet structures that kids can run up and down, there’s little bits where they can crawl underneath and jump off, we’ve got things that kids can climb inside as well, they can play in the sand, they can run around, we’ve got loose parts kids can play with too.”

“We want people who come along to have a fun experience in a gallery, we think that’s really important that kids can have a positive, fun, uplifting experience in a gallery.

“We want them to feel proud and excited about playwork provisions in Wrexham, and perhaps learn something they didn’t know previously about what other provisions are on offer, so that when the gallery closes, they might go and explore other playground provisions in the town.

“We also want to highlight the creativity, that innate creativity that runs through everything that happens on an adventure playground, so I suppose it’s about highlighting art and creativity in the everyday.”

Speaking on the feedback the gallery has had since it opened, she added: “We’ve had really amazing feedback so far, footfall data showed that we had 600 people turn up on the opening day. To put that into perspective, when we had the Grace and Perry exhibition, the opening for that drew 200 people and that was a busy opening.

“You never know how people will react to the opening of a new exhibition, and we were wondering whether kids would want to play with it, but as soon as they were in here they were in the sand, they were climbing on the panels, they just knew what to do.

“The artistic input has been brilliant, as I say we wanted to highlight the fantastic playwork provisions Wrexham has, but it was about framing that in a gallery context.”

PLAY-WORK is open from Monday to Saturday from 10am-5pm.