Breaking Ground with Play: Shahrzad Malekian's Artistic Practice and Beyond explores how free play in contemporary art can challenge norms, resist constraints, and inspire new ways of thinking. At the centre of this investigation is the work of artist Shahrzad Malekian, who has spent the past decade using play as a key element in their practice. Malekian's projects transform everyday spaces —from sports halls to city streets—into playgrounds of imagination, inviting audiences to interact and break boundaries between artwork and viewer. By encouraging spontaneous play, Malekian shows how small acts can subvert societal norms.

Featuring essays from cultural theorists, curators, and critics such as Elke Krasny, Ida Højgaard Thjømøe, Helga Nyman, Tirdad Zolghadr, and Jari Malta, Breaking Ground with Play brings together perspectives on how free play in art can be a democratising force. Through Malekian's work, this book explores how play—unrestricted and fluid—can make us question authority and reimagine our relationships with public spaces, institutions, and each other. It calls us to rediscover the power of play and see art not just as something to observe, but as something to inhabit, question, and reimagine.

This book springs from a four-year collaboration between Malekian and Thjømøe at the public art project Off-Site commissioned by The City of Oslo Art Collection for a new sports hall at Korsvoll Oslo.