Maite Roest and Laura Delgado (Master of Education in Arts) graduated with their interdisciplinary project The Music Playground.

The Music Playground is an interdisciplinary project where visual arts and music come together to encourage playful learning. It is an accessible play space where people of all ages, backgrounds, and levels of knowledge can explore and connect. 

For this project, Maite and Laura designed an environment where children of various ages can discover music through play, be encouraged to compose their own music, and collaborate with others. They created a portable sound installation for The Music Playground, allowing it to be taken to different locations. The project has been tested in primary school classrooms (both regular and NT2 settings) and during the Children’s Music Week at the Library in Deventer. For this initiative, they collaborated with partners such as Kunstcircuit Deventer, the Municipality of Deventer, LIMAI, Familiar Forest, and a children’s advisory committee to provide feedback from “the experts.” Although the design for this pilot focused on children, it became clear in practice that adults were also eager to engage, explore, and play with the installation.
 

Gabriela Acosta Camacho, programme leader and lecturer for the Master of Education in Arts: “The enthusiasm and national interest in this project indicate a strong demand for arts education initiatives like The Music Playground. I hope this project will serve as a best practice for arts organisations, educational institutions, and cultural centres in the Netherlands—and perhaps beyond, as language poses no barrier to this design.”

Ernesto Bos, Studio Flohil: “The Music Playground has proven to be a beloved space where children not only have fun but also encounter music and movement in an innovative way. We are convinced that this installation has a positive impact on their development and are delighted to contribute to educational play experiences with it.” 

Laura Delgado and Maite Roest