risk, risk and more risk

Since june 2008 when i started working at YPAA (Young People and the Arts Australia) i was handed on a project called Planning Safer Projects, which we delivered in Perth a few month back, and will be in Canberra in mid November. 

When i first saw this project I really had little idea what to do with it, I presumed most arts workers had this risk stuff covered. However during my time here in Tas i realise that in fact maybe this is a much bigger issues nationally than i had originally thought.

There was an article in the Weekend Australian a few weeks back about parents and children and the issues / media  / situations which have created more evidence for families and communities to be risk adverse - when it comes to children just "being" in the world.

Darren, Nat and I have been talking a lot about risk.

Asking questions like:

"what risks would parents / teachers / children consider acceptable?" 

"how can this conversation be built into our projects?"

"where are our own boundaries around what risks we would be comfortable with in our projects?"

I noticed Darren had linked some stuff on the Mowbray Heights blog about children's playgrounds and risk. I have cut and pasted just a small section of a larger quote.

"The problem is exacerbated by the American public’s increasing difficulty with assessing risk on a daily basis. The playground has become so safe that it no longer allows children to take on challenges that will further educational and emotional development"  American Playgrounds by Susan G. Solomon 

I have also noticed that a few other organisations are hosting workshops with similar topics and links into larger government departments whose job it is to avoid risk, of a large magnitude.

I have no answers about this yet but have been pondering the associated questions.

I have been wondering how to build into my work this type of conversation and during one of the workshops i realised in fact children like adults  have some big concerns about their own saftey in relation to strangers...

I will come back to this topic, as it is forming part of some larger questions:

what risk is helpful to human growth?

what risk is just plain dangerous?

what risk have we been made to fear and by which sources?

what does this mean for art making?

what does this mean for contemporary childhood?