Playing with risk: The dangers of thinking safe | Mike Hewson | TEDxSydney
The speaker argues that modern society's over-focus on predictable safety stifles creativity and capability, instead advocating for encouraging exploratory and risk-taking behavior in public settings. He supports this by detailing his artistic projects—like building interactive art installations and reconstructing demolished park fences—which mirror the intuitive, boundary-testing play of children. Ultimately, he urges the audience to recognize that embracing inherent risks is integral to navigating life, much like the "Wild Ocean." ## Speakers & Context - **Mike** — The speaker; an artist who previously studied civil engineering. - **Topic focus:** Sharing experiences to advocate for embracing inherent risks in everyday public settings, drawing parallels between childhood play and modern art. - **Initial Anecdote:** Building a dam in a Grassy Creek connecting to a farm paddock with friends when the speaker was about seven. - **Contrast:** The highly structured, logical, and risk-averse nature of civil engineering versus the unpredictable nature of art. ## Theses & Positions - Risk-taking behavior and exploratory play are vital for human development and are essential skills for navigating life. - Civil engineering, while logical and problem-solving, is inherently *risk-averse*. - Attempts to eliminate all risk create "blind spots" in our understanding of what is possible. - Embracing risk is fundamental to embracing life itself. - Proper risk management, while necessary for delivering projects, must not override the need for genuine adventure. ## Concepts & Definitions - **Risk-reducing practical concerns:** Worries (safety, feasibility) that seem to "crush creativity." - **Wild Ocean:** A concept applied metaphorically to the period of massive, rapid change following the Christchurch earthquake, when the stable, known city became unpredictable. - **Precarity/Impermanence:** A deeply human fascination with things that are temporary, which the speaker notes is appealing to us. ## Mechanisms & Processes - **Engineering Process:** Methodical, logical, problem-solving, and risk-averse, requiring resources like pipelines off the coast of New Zealand. - **Artistic Process:** Often involves creating large, permanent, climbable public installations that engage public interaction, such as the Wollongong proposal. - **Child Play Mechanism:** Kids' natural tendency to test boundaries, exemplified by "giving it a little nudge" to loose objects or running risk assessments while navigating the world. - **Project Adaptation:** The ability to rebuild structures (like fences) using salvaged materials (demolished bricks) in a decentralized, "haphazardly plonked all over the place" way. ## Timeline & Sequence - **Childhood:** Building a dam in a Grassy Creek around age seven. - **Early Career:** Working in Marine construction building a pipeline off the coast of New Zealand (instilling resourcefulness). - **February 2011:** Christchurch earthquake shakes the city where the speaker had an art studio. - **Post-Quake Period:** Sneaking back into the inner city to paste up images on buildings as temporary "love." - **Wollongong Project:** Proposal to create a living flagpole featuring 100-year-old palm trees strapped to a lamppost, built over several years. - **Saint Peter's Project:** Proposing to rebuild front fences in a park using bricks from demolished homes, working with a local school. ## Named Entities - **Mike** — The artist and speaker. - **Christchurch** — City shaken by a giant earthquake in February 2011. - **Wollongong** — City where the speaker realized a major proposal. - **St. Peter's** — Location for the fence reconstruction project. - **Sydney** — Location mentioned in relation to the highway tunnel project impacting the community. - **City of Melbourne** — City associated with a recent "leftovers project" involving plastic buckets and old trees. ## Numbers & Data - Age during dam building: **Seven**. - Number of years in Christchurch the art studio was locked up: **Almost two years**. - Depth contrast example: A **$600$ billion** submarine vs. the "Wild Ocean" project scope. - Number of palm trees highlighted: **100**. - Duration of the Wollongong project success: **Four years on**. ## Examples & Cases - **The Dam Build:** Piling dirt in a Grassy Creek, flooding the paddock, and later the neighbor’s property. Thomas jumping in the freezing water to Wade through and break the ice. - **Christchurch Art:** Pasting up images on buildings as temporary interventions in the inner city. - **Wollongong Artwork:** A series of sculptures featuring 100-year-old palm trees on lampposts, incorporating side-lying palm tree seats and sandstone boulders with forklift slots. - **Playground Installation:** A playground created with rubber matting matching granite paving, including a swing, which the public found unexpectedly engaging. - **St. Peter's Fences:** Rebuilding front fences in a park from salvaged bricks of demolished houses, creating a "graveyard" effect appealing to the public. - **Melbourne "Leftovers" Project:** Stacking towers from heavy-duty plastic buckets and incorporating old, cut-down trees. ## Tools, Tech & Products - **Raft:** Used by friends to carry dirt for building the dam. - **Camera:** Used to document the process of building art/structures. - **Forensic/Architectural observation:** Using visual cues (e.g., observing how kids interact with seemingly disconnected objects) as data. ## Trade-offs & Alternatives - **Engineering Trade-off:** Choosing between the ordered logic of engineering and the uncertain nature of art. - **Safety vs. Exploration:** The conflict between designing for safety and enabling risk for learning. - **Linear Development vs. Disorder:** Rejecting the assumption that everything "should be on one track," favoring organic, mixed-up growth. ## Counterarguments & Caveats - Some people view the public art projects as "not safe" or "too risky." - The speaker acknowledges that for professional execution, risk management is absolutely necessary. ## Conclusions & Recommendations - People should be encouraged to engage in exploratory and risk-taking behavior in public settings to prepare them for life. - The speaker advocates for an attitude that resists the 21st-century gospel that everything must be predictable, ordered, and efficient. - The audience is left with the choice: *“should we let them do it?”* (referring to the children playing). ## Implications & Consequences - Failure to allow play and risk means failing to equip the next generation with the ability to self-regulate and navigate uncertainty. - A culture that prioritizes risk elimination risks losing vital aspects of its dynamism and human connection to the environment. ## Verbatim Moments - *"unsupervised seven-year-olds and cold wet clothing in the middle of the winter building a shoddy mud Dam"* - *"I'll take you through some of the projects that I've made and um a lot of the learnings that I've had often from observing The Adventurous child when it comes to things around embracing the inherent risks in life"* - *"There's like no shop around the corner so you have to be resourceful and when things go wrong and often they go horribly wrong you have to be able to think on your feet"* - *"the stable City that I knew it became like the Wild Ocean"* - *"I can't put handrails around everything and even if we could I don't think it would really benefit us"* - *"It's really up to you guys"*