As we approached 90 days of enforced lockdown, the coronavirus continued to transform our landscape in new and obscure ways. The ripple effect in our economy, our shared spaces, and our own lives continued without us truly knowing the outcome.

I attempted to capture the ongoing effect on British playgrounds, with eerie effect.

As April and May brought unseasonably sunny weather, our council parks and playgrounds should’ve been teeming with children, but were left instead, strangely desolate.

As a result, lockdown’s de-population of playing children has created the opportunity for a more knowing play, of photographic art, capturing these ambiguous melancholic forms without life.

Untended and scattered with natural debris and emerging weeds, outdated and tired recreation grounds look even more forlorn.
Taken by drone in mostly flat light, they read as flat painterly Mondrian style designs, but with an atmosphere of forlorn forgottonness.
Apart from the original CAD-using designers, who created these playful environments, they will not have been seen from this perspective before.

Whether newly built and awaiting their first summer of play or shabby but still treasured by local children - they remain suspended, waiting to welcome families once again.