Tiz Creel’s ‘Space for autonomous imagination’

I’m always on the lookout for joyful art or spaces that allow art to be viewed joyfully. Sometimes, no matter how fun the artwork itself is, the exhibition spaces we use are devoid of energy: you so rarely hear anyone chuckle in a white cube gallery and museum spaces are set up to inspire awe rather than light-hearted laughs. The way we write about art, too, is all too often designed to make us think (too serious), promise to improve us in some way (too preachy) or emphasise the artwork’s place in the historical canon (too complicated). Why can’t art viewing just be joyful?

I have been thinking back to some of my favourite uplifting artworks and installations. Notable mentions go to Jealous Gallery’s ever-playful presence at art fairs, Erwin Wurm’s surreal Trap of the Truth (2023) exhibition at Yorkshire Sculpture Park (and actually, all of Yorkshire Sculpture Park) and Anne Veronica Janssens’ exhibition at South London Gallery in 2020 with rideable bicycles. But, if pushed to pick just one artwork that sums up the importance of allowing visitors to interact playfully with art and empowering viewers to indulge in joy, I would choose Tiz Creel’s Space for autonomous imagination every time.

I first saw Creel’s Space for autonomous imagination in 2019 as part of Deptford X—an annual arts festival throughout Deptford in South London, founded in 1998. Hidden away in a community centre on the Vanguard Estate, the abstract bouncy castle was like something from another planet. It featured great spikes, bold bands of colour and a geometric opening welcoming visitors into the sculpture—as long as they had taken their shoes off first. It felt half village fete and half 2001: A Space Odyssey.

We speak about accessibility in art and there’s not much more you can do to give audiences a personal interaction with an artwork than letting them clamber inside it. The artwork isn’t huge, so I waited for a mother and child to leave before I stumbled in. They were probably pleased I waited because I think I fell over pretty immediately. Space for autonomous imagination is usually what I say in interviews when I am asked what I would choose to own if I could pick any artwork in the world. I like the idea of having a stressing-busting bounce in it in the morning.

Creel lives and works in England but comes from Mexico City and the bright colours, magic imagery and geometric patterns of the Mexican capital are evident in the PVC structure, which also has something of the Bauhaus ballet about it. It is hard to pinpoint Creel’s style or even to generalise the themes she tackles. “Ideas come in different forms and I don’t want to limit what the work can or cannot be,” she tells me. “Some call it undisciplined; I call it modular and constantly under construction.” The inflatable structure is made up of spikes, slopes and stairs designed to “create a space that allows unconstrained thinking” through play. “There is a limit to what logic can do,” says Creel.

Ideas come in different forms, and I don’t want to limit what the work can or cannot be.
– Tiz Creel

The structure was designed so that visitors would trip and “inevitably fall” down the perilously narrow inflatable stairs. There is no way that it would pass its [safety] survey. Creel contends that “only by forgetting about the laws that reign our world will visitors be capable of navigating the space”. Despite knowing that the spikes inside the sculpture are air-filled PVC, part of you does fear being impaled as you are watched over by an all-seeing eye-like set of concentric circles. “Even if only for a second, people got to experience the magic circle, a state of mind where the rules of reality are suspended, and play becomes true and meaningful,” explains Creel.

Space for autonomous imagination is part of Creel’s output of “play arts” that focus on interactivity. Creel has been exploring the importance of play in her work for over five years, creating interactive theatre pieces, tabletop and video games, as well as larger sculptural works. As part of Deptford X, Creel ran a workshop guiding participants through the sculpture and encouraging the group to explore their interpretations of the imagined space. “People are present and engaged when the work requires them to be physically and mentally active,” she tells me. “When we play, we engage fully with life and its contents to reach the most profound truths in ordinary things. I believe that play is an inevitable aspect of any artist, maker and thinker’s daily life. Play—as a concept, tool and experience—is vital in understanding ourselves and the world around us.”

But Creel highlights a point of contention: “We have taken away adults’ ability to play, feel vulnerable and do unusual things…In the arts, the perception of interactivity is gently negative; in my experience, the art world is hesitant about the idea. For instance, I have noted that people don’t like to play when children play.” Maybe I should have jumped in alongside that mother and child after all…

Creel told me about the practical contemplations that went into creating Space for autonomous imagination, which only added to how much I like the work. The piece needed to be easily transported, set up, packed down and reused, so creating an inflatable work was ideal. “After art school and many exhibitions,” she says, “I realised how much waste we generate making art and shows; even small things like painting a wall have a marked environmental impact.”

Space for autonomous imagination offered a real sense of sanctuary, and clambering through the triangular entrance (which a different writer would probably get Freudian about) really did give the feeling of leaving one realm and entering another, where I was briefly fully immersed in play, navigating the small structure that sat somewhere between an abstract masterpiece and a children’s birthday party. With her works, Creel reminds us to tap into our imagination whenever and wherever we can: “Amidst a challenging future, we will need imagination more than ever—imagination being the parameter to meet the unknown … The future is for those who can see it.”