The playground was our school, imagination was our friend, life's lessons were learnt through the bumps and bruises we gathered from knocking against those colourful, rock hard mosaic tiles.

With our early days of childhood in contrast to the present context, lessons were learnt through the scraping of our knees from falling on the gritty sandpits. We learnt through falling, playing, dreaming and feeling the sand in between our toes. It is an irony and also a pity that such innocent and intuitive enthusiasm are fading away as today's society gets increasingly “safe” and “protected”. The architecture of such nostalgic playgrounds were considered art, beyond the tangible realm. And in our humble opinion, they are so much more creative and imaginative than the plastic playgrounds we have now.

School of Hard Knocks captures and celebrates the essence of the good old dreamy days and life's lessons we learnt from these slowly vanishing playgrounds, our school of hard knocks.

About the artist

the little dröm store consists of drömkeepers, Stanley Tan and Antoinette Wong. Both are graphic designers. the little dröm store is a gallery shop found in Singapore. It houses countless dream clouds, random knick knacks and also collections of all things inspiring and heartening. It aspires to bring together people from all creative walks of life, and to promote and share their work with the rest of the world.