Remember when Dad did…?

kinderboekenweek OBA, Amsterdam

This weekend I joined Liam from DadsDoArt at the OBA Osdorp in Amsterdam for Kinderboekenweek, helping children make sock puppets and explore their imaginations through art, craft and play. The idea was simple: make a character, give it a voice, and see where the story goes.

While the children played, we invited parents to think about the beginning of another story: “Remember when Dad did…?”
What comes to mind? Something funny, a game you played, a small moment together that has stayed with you? For those whose childhood memories are more difficult, the question can turn towards the future: what would you like your children to remember about you?

Naming dads is a deliberate invitation to fathers to get involved with other dads adapting to non-traditional roles as parents in the 21 century. Obviously mums and other carers are all super welcome. We are however simply 2 Dads that Do Art. We wanted to make space for parents to reflect on the stories they carry from childhood and the ones they are creating with their own children today.

As parents, it is easy to become caught up in providing, working and earning enough. Those responsibilities are real. But what feels important to us can look very different from a child’s perspective. Sometimes what they want is for us to sit beside them, put a sock puppet on our hand and join their imaginary world.

There will come a day in the. not to distant future when they stop asking us to play. That gives these ordinary moments a significance we might only recognise later.

As an artist working in Amsterdam, I’m interested in how making things together can open up conversations and bring people closer. That interest also runs through the community art projects I’m developing around stories, memory and belonging.
This weekend, it began with a sock puppet and a question: what memories are we making together?