Francis Alÿs: Ricochets, Barbican Review ★★★★★

Child’s play is really quite a serious matter, judging by the concentration with which the children featured in Francis Alÿs’s videos abandon themselves to their games.

In the immersive Ricochets, his first solo show in the UK for almost 15 years, the Belgian-born, Mexico-based Alÿs turns his camera on the games children play in over 15 countries around the world. These high definition short videos occupy the lower floor of the Barbican Art Gallery, transporting visitors to other worlds and other realities.

Some games, though fiercely competitive, are quite innocent. That’s the case with 'Appelsindans', filmed in prosperous Denmark.

Francis Alÿs, Children’s Game #34: Appelsindans, Copenhagen, Denmark, 2022
In collaboration with Rafael Ortega, Julien Devaux, and Copenhagen Contemporary

Others, though, show children’s indomitable response to circumstances of barely imaginable harshness. Ukraine’s war against the Russian invaders sets the scene for a new, very topical game, 'Parol': at a crossroads In Kharkiv, not far from the frontline, three boys in army fatigues carrying wooden guns have set up their own checkpoint to uncover Russian spies.

Francis Alÿs, Children’s Game #39: Parol, Kharkiv, Ukraine, 2023
In collaboration with Julien Devaux, Félix Blume, and Hanna Tsyba

They stop cars, demand to see ID, ask for the password: Palyanitsya, a Ukrainian word which Russians can’t pronounce properly. Just a few drive past; most comply in good-humoured complicity between adults and children.

As stated in a written note in the more sedate first floor, where the history of play going back millennia and its social importance are illustrated in prints: ‘children play to assimilate the realities they encounter.’

And so it is that these videos of children playing speak loudly of their very diverse realities, and their unique ability to harness their circumstances to create games. Poor kids in Cuba’s capital Havana engage in street races in 'chivichanas' (pictured top), basic carts improvised from bits of wood and ball bearings, which can reach hair-raising speeds.

In contrast, a group of Belgian kids become quite absorbed in their snail races, each showing great concern for his or her own champion mollusc, egging it on towards the finish line.

Any old bit of dirt where you can draw a shape with a stick serves for a game of hopscotch, here filmed in a refugee camp in Iraq. Football is, of course, popular in most of the world, even if played with an imaginary ball amid rubble and ruins on a dirt road in war-torn Iraq, with frequent interruptions to allow the passage of armoured convoys. Or in an African village’s meticulous equivalent to Subbuteo, with a small marble flicked around stationary miniature players made up of sticks.

Particularly moving is 'Papalote', the video of a young Afghan child with his beloved kite.

Francis Alÿs, Children’s Game #10: Papalote, Balkh, Afghanistan, 2011
In collaboration with Elena Pardo, Félix Blume, and Ajmal Maiwandi

Kite flying, a very popular pastime, was banned by the Taliban – this video was filmed at a time between Taliban regimes.

This is an exhibition with tremendous emotional impact, its images sure to evoke in each viewer powerful memories of their own childhood games. On the first floor playrooms are set aside inviting children and adults to create their own games by casting shadow images of birds, rabbits, dogs… and for a brief blissful moment become the sole architects of their own world.