Abigail Horn Inclusive Arts

In 2025, I added more elements to my playable installations. As well as the highly successful I Did It! (see below), I have been developing a new series of works examining identity and costume, the affordances of objects, and sound and materiality. These can be combined in larger spaces, or exhibited as stand-alone pieces. All are part of my ongoing practice-based inquiry into play in public cultural spaces. Details below.

Who Are You Today?

This interactive work is a playful invitation to explore identity. The soft geometric shapes and loose parts offered can be combined in different ways to create wearable sculptures, costumes, headpieces, and props. Light projection and transparencies offer participants the opportunity to add colour to their creations.

A Ball, A Stick, A Crumpet

An evolving study of object-play, this piece offers found and reclaimed objects alongside artist-made artefacts for self-directed exploration. With no prompt or instruction other than “play”, audience members are free to explore their affordances creating sculptures and games, or curating collections to display. Sustainability is a key element of this work, with many of the resources sourced from scrap-stores and second-hand shops. Others are fabricated in response to items in museum and gallery collections, such as custom acrylic loose parts and textile balls.

Board of Sound

Born from an inquiry into children and technology, the Board of Sound is an interactive opportunity to the audience to compose their own sound art. The board is backed with contact microphones, participants can add rubber bands, springs, zips and other everyday objects to make a graphic score on the board and then play it. The sounds are amplified gently through a speaker.

I Did It!

First shown at Modern Art Oxford as part of a group show at the Tiny Ideas Festival 2023 and then at Now Play This at Somerset House in 2024, I Did It! Is an interactive installation for children under 6 and their families. Come and visit a room filled with light and shadow, where you can stack and arrange boxes to create whatever you want. See your own image projected onto the boxes as you play, building worlds around yourself.

If you would like to show this work, or one of my other installations at your gallery, museum or arts festival, please get in touch.

I Did It! Artist Statement

I Did It ! is an interactive installation for children under seven and their families. Come and visit a room filled with light and shadow, where you can stack and arrange boxes to create whatever you want. See your own image projected onto the boxes as you play, building worlds around yourself.

In early childhood, play and learning are inseparable. However, as adults seek to quantify early learning, they often try and re-shape qualities like curiosity, exploration, and wonder so that they can fit them into data shaped boxes. I Did It! is an installation that situates children as powerful creators, inviting them to be active agents as opposed to passive participants. Children can build and shape the gallery space around them, playfully creating their own data as they use boxes to represent their thoughts and ideas.  The camera and projector invite children to observe their own image whilst playing, offering opportunities for dialogue and reflection.