by Ángeles de Hita - Dec 6, 2025.
When we’re children, we play without thinking about it. We climb, we let ourselves fall, we spin, we run, repeating movements simply for the pleasure of feeling the body in motion. We’re not looking for a goal: play is enough.
At some point in adulthood, we learn or are taught to stop playing. The body becomes utilitarian, the imagination disciplined, and the spaces that invite spontaneous movement seem to belong only to childhood. But the impulse to play doesn’t disappear. It stays quiet, waiting for the right conditions of freedom, surprise, or unfamiliarity to activate again. Perhaps what we call “bringing out the child within us” isn’t a regression at all, but a reminder: play, in all its forms, remains a way of thinking, feeling, and relating to the world. It doesn’t disappear; it simply shifts its setting. And in certain moments, when something invites us to move differently, that impulse suddenly becomes visible again.
Sometimes all it takes is a ramp, a turn, or a controlled fall to reactivate that playful way of perceiving. Some artists know exactly how to spark that moment. They create situations that awaken this sleeping gesture and allow us to feel, even for an instant, the intensity and freedom of childhood play. One of them is Carsten Höller.
Höller, who was first trained as a scientist, creates works that function as open experiments. They are not pieces to be quietly observed, but structures that ask you to do something: slide, enter or repeat a movement. Some of his installations resemble playground equipment, but enlarged and placed inside museums. And much like the early adventure playgrounds were spaces designed to give children autonomy within controlled urban environments, Höller gives adults a similar kind of freedom inside institutions that typically restrict touch and improvisation.
His slides, for example, aren’t meant to entertain. They’re designed to shift perception. Höller works from a simple but powerful idea: when the body activates, the mind opens. Sliding down one of his structures, a visitor moves through speed, laughter, surprise, and a small, controlled risk. These are sensations we recognise from childhood but rarely encounter in adult life.
Participation, however, isn’t always possible. The slides are conceived to be used, not just looked at, but their activation depends on the museum, safety regulations, and the specific installation. Höller has said many times that the real work is “the act of sliding,” not the sculptural form. Yet he accepts that, for institutional reasons, the pieces must sometimes remain still, presented like paused play objects.
And perhaps that’s part of their power: when they’re activated, adults rediscover a feeling they thought they’d lost—an alert, curious way of noticing the world.
I think Höller isn’t asking us to become children again. He’s reminding us that the child is still there. And that sometimes, a single gesture as a gentle fall, an unexpected turn, or a reflection that throws us off balance, is enough to find them again.
