Children’s Play and Art Practices with Agentic Objects

Material objects, ranging from used pieces of gum to superhero capes, are an essential part of children’s play and art practices. However, such items are rarely analyzed as a part of children’s social interaction. Onto-epistemological, scientific, and bio-technological developments of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries have enhanced the interest in physical objects within many academic disciplines, and led some to consider if objects, too, can have social agency. In this article, I use Bruno Latour’s actor-network theory (ANT) to analyze three kinds of objects in the context of children’s play and art practices: (1) physical objects, (2) digital objects, and (3) transformative and imagined objects. The research data consists of photographs from three art education projects carried out in Finland and in the US. The analysis shows how children tend to use all kinds of objects creatively and with a playful manner. The material actants, in turn, suggest playful activities for children as they participate in the social activity as a part of a network.