THE DARK SLIDE

A gargantuan creature lurks in the corner of a new leisure centre in east London, casting a slightly sinister gaze towards Barking town square. Part monster, part robot, part skeleton, its all kinds of mad but one thing's for sure, your kids will want in.

“I wanted to make the kids’ soft play area a bit more bling and glam than usual, and a bit sinister, too,” says artist Marvin Gaye Chetwynd, the creator of The Idol - an immense climbing frame that stands at the heart of Barking and Dagenham’s new £14m Abbey leisure centre. An absurdist Turner prize-nominated performance artist, formerly known as Spartacus, Chetwynd's kiddie structure is rammed with pearly ball pits, vinyl-covered foam shapes and cargo nets.

With a £200,000 budget, Chetwynd worked with soft play experts House of Play to make a beguiling vertical labyrinth. She also ditched the usual primary-colour palette in favour of black. “I think they were a bit uneasy about the monochrome idea,” she says. “But high-contrast black-and-white toys are great for young kids, and there’s an exuberant art deco elegance for the parents to enjoy, too.”

The markings for level changes and drops, required by health and safety, are made in what she calls “glamorous snakeskin”, a scalloped pattern that recalls the tiled floors of antiquity. It is echoed in the wallpaper of her characteristic photocopy collages, which sample everything from Ancient Greek friezes to cosmic symbols.

So with her first permanent structure now complete, has it given the anarchic queen of dressing-up a taste for more practical projects that break free from the gallery walls? “Absolutely,” she beams, “it’s what I should be doing now that I’m a fully-functioning grownup.”

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