This body of work by Katharine Le Hardy looks at the history of play and the elemental simplicity of this aspect of childhood. Through play children learn and develop in every way; cognitive, physical, creative, social, and imaginative. Our childhood memories often orientate around play; most of us will feature a memory of a seaside holiday or a heady moment in a playground. The most vivid autobiographical memories tend to be of emotional events, which are likely to be recalled more often and with more clarity and detail than neutral events. Our more formed childhood memories tend to orientate around moments of heightened excitement, a ponderous rope swing or a first success on a bicycle. Memories of childhood, transitory and emotionally skewed, are captured here as rose-tinted snatches of a lost time. These memories feel nostalgic and fantastical in equal parts.
