Learning about this experience echoed sentiments I long thought were buried and introduced me to Project Playground. This trip embodies Playground’s ethos: an ecosystem of creatives whose mission to connect people through events and trips around the world has become a home for an inner child starving for an elating experience to push them out of their adulthood-induced hibernation.

Everything is intentional. Going through the community’s archive, I saw incredible effort. Co-curated by London-based cultural curator Bailey Davis, who also heads Playgrounds Social Media, this collective treats each new person as a co-creator rather than a passing visitor. Joining Project Playground means sharing a purpose, of course, but it also means tapping into a stream of activities that guide you to slow down and appreciate life’s beauty and the opportunity for thoughtful, meaningful human interactions.

I have long questioned the meaning of the word community. A label that has been commercialised and over-commodified so many times, it begins to feel more like the buzzing of empty promises. Yet thinking about those 109 people, discovering something completely new, together, maybe that is where this notorious word takes true shape.

To build a community, we need shared experience, and the further apart we seem to drift, the more honest that experience needs to be. In that space of complete honesty, Project Playground operates.

In cities like London, where the weird cocktail of mental isolation and physical exhaustion can make you feel lonely, we often forgo the depths of connecting to spaces for a simple need to be a part of something. But why should we? In my search for a place of refuge, I found Project Playground, first encountered as I dove deeper into Davis’ curatorial work, but we’ll get to that.

Playground puts community care at the forefront. Each new event is a collective effort, but Davis and Playground’s incredible attentiveness makes the experience so special. From the Playground Express in Mongolia to the annual Playground Gathering in Berlin, Davis brings a signature eye to the set design and gives each space its own character, showcasing a clear and specific curatorial vision. 

For Davis, the intricate process of curating is quite familiar. She has long been diving into the deep end of cultural narratives, both as a co-organiser and curator of METAROOTS, an exhibition that took place earlier this year at the Cramer St Gallery and as the founder and editor-in-chief of her culture-tech magazine Zeal, which prompted me to jump into the rabbit hole of Davis’ other curatorial adventures and, laid with yellow bricks of intention, led me to Playground.

At Zeal, Davis re-contextualised fashion, art and culture through the lens of emerging technology, bridging the gap between the creative and technical. At METAROOTS, she presented ancestry and heritage as sources of information in the digital world. It is clear both of these ventures informed her work with Project Playground, honouring time-old traditions and bringing them into the highly digitised contemporary world.

This blend of history and modernity was on full display during Project Playground’s recent Mongolian Playground Express, which began with two local members proposing to bring Playground to their homeland. From there, the Playground team crafted a unique journey, working with local businesses to tap into Mongolia’s ecosystem and create a meeting point of shared history.

Davis co-curated the train’s set design, turning a moving carriage into a space between worlds, and edited the guided booklets that led guests through the lineup, performances and workshops.

It feels wonderful to imagine the guests entering that magical train for the first time, going further and further into the depths of reality Playground created, discovering new dimensions with each step, their eyes lit with excitement as they spot more and more unexpected objects.

This was another thing that stood out to me about this particular collective: the range of activities the guests were welcomed to. Whether it’s riding a train in Mongolia or taking over a medieval castle in Berlin, Playground always mixes the fun and entertaining with the mindful and emotionally satiating.

An event with carefully selected sets and performances is swiftly followed by a morning ritual of breathwork and meditation. The excitement of a party meets the calmness of a simple breath, crafting this unique, all-encompassing balance.

Playground’s schedule is always changing, growing based on the voices of their contributors and the shifting cultural tides.

Davis and the team keep the power of play at the heart of the project. Their curation offers adults a refuge where they can rediscover their love of exciting, goofy experiences. That is why the name Project Playground carries so much meaning in the current cultural landscape; it truly is a playground for adults to discover and for their minds to wander.