One definition for a den is - “a wild mammal's hidden home; a lair”. It is also defined as a hide out, it is a space that facilitates children’s imaginative play. It helps them create the make-believe world they want to inhabit. Currently in my home, variants of dens reappear on a daily basis and seem to be a somewhat intimate and safe space for my children to play, imagine and wonder. I would like to expand on this work through performance workshops in which I collaborate with participants (families, parents & children) and encourage parents to re-emerge themselves into the world of play with their children, in creating and telling abstracted fabricated stories, that link to maternal and domestic life and on their thoughts and feelings of living on the Estuary, how valuable is the sea to their children and their lives as a family. What this environment provides them with, how they use it? How is it being looked after, taken care of?

Emphasising the importance for outdoor free play for their children and keeping these places clean for them. Also thinking of questions about how can we make our outdoor spaces? In particular the beach more accessible to families.

'Time in nature is not leisure time it’s an essential investment in our children’s health and also by the way in our own" Richard Lou - Last child in the woods.