Everything you need to know about Play Works, Orleans House Gallery

Children and art galleries are two things you probably wouldn't associate with each other. One screams chaos while the other screams culture, but somehow Orleans House Gallery in Twickenham has made it work.

The Play Works exhibition which opened in November is in collaboration with the Turner Prize-winning art and architecture collective Assemble and Assemble Play. It celebrates the endless possibilities of play, encouraging children to let their imaginations run wild while their parents sit back and watch the magic unfold.

I spent a lunchtime with Penny Wilson from Assemble and Jess Meehan who works at the gallery, and I was immediately struck by the ever-changing nature of the exhibition, as buckets, building blocks, and ribbons waited patiently to be brought to life.

The idea behind the exhibition is relatively simple.

Penny said: “Children and young people need to play.

"It’s innate within them and fundamental to their biological, psychological, and social development."

She explained how play is a process which a child should choose and direct freely. Not so long ago, this was very much the case - children were left to their own devices for hours at a time and enjoyed total agency over their play.

These days, a lot of children won't have spent much more than an hour unsupervised, and that's where Playworks comes in.

Studies show that play deprivation contributes to poor mental health in children, so children must be given the license to play again and to be themselves.

While screens could be used to enhance the play experience, they are more commonly used to substitute it, and Penny described it as a "one-dimensional experience."

On the contrary, she said: "When you’re playing, your brain should be working in harmony with your body - you’re smelling or being scared of falling off something. And that’s perfectly normal."

It is important to remember that play is something which unites children across the globe. They climb different trees, some may swim in canals while others swim in lagoons, but at its root, children all get up to the same things.

And it's so crucial for the development of their brain. When a child is playing and taking risks or inventing things, whether that's copying adult roles, digging a hole, or playing with water, their brain is combining all these different combinations and acquiring pieces of information that help their brains to develop.

When we take away their freedom to experiment or fall over, we're taking away their chance to succeed.

A video that walks through the exhibition from the point of view of a child. This is done by holding your phone at knee length.

Freedom is something which the exhibition aims to encourage. While it can be tempting to guide your children to play in a certain way, Penny emphasised that children are brand new and they're discovering the world for the first time.

They are perfectly capable of figuring things out for themselves, we just have to stand back and let it happen.

While this happens, parents can snuggle up next to the radiator or they can go upstairs and read all about it, reliving their own memories of childhood and play.

No two minutes at the exhibition are the same, as children come and go, and toys move around.

Jess said: "The response has been genuine delight, and quite emotional at times.

"Parents have been so pleased to have this space, particularly in a gallery which is different.

"Allowing adults to step back and watch their children make magic has been very, very lovely."

Following the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Amica Dall, co-founder and member of Assemble, was asked to create a piece of public artwork in the east end of the city. The area had been more or less deserted, so Assemble created an adventure playground and handed it over to local people.

Some years later, she was asked to set up in a playground in King's Cross. However, doing that takes up a lot of space which is at a real premium in London, so they decided to set up a "play presence" instead, and that's where Assemble Play was born.

As well as hosting the Playworks Exhibition at Orleans House, Assemble Play host family-friendly events teaching families how to manage the play life of their children.

They also host a weekly play session at the Grenfell Tower site which addresses the play needs of the children, teenagers and parents who were affected by the fire.