Designing Boojum!

”a timeless jumble of contemporary and historical references drawn from Dodgson’s life and his fictional works.
Simone Romaniuk

The design of Boojum! is a place in Charles Dodgson’s imagination. The playground evokes a sense of an imagined idyllic childhood but also gives a framework of reality.

Central to the playground is Dodgson’s apartment, which in this world is the cubby house. Filled with puzzles and games with a chessboard floor, the cubby house rises above the playground space, separating Dodgson and Carroll from the other characters. As the place where Dodgson created his characters, poems, stories and inventions, this house holds all the magical tricks, toys and games that the Boojum! characters play with throughout their journey.

The fort and roundabout anchor the characters in a partial reality. They huddle together on the fort, then strike out on their own through the playground, spinning on the roundabout, exploring the cubby house, only to return to the fort again.

Fragments of trees, flowers and grass stepping stones are scattered throughout, as though partially remembered fragments of a childhood garden.

The Boojum! characters themselves are gathered together from Lewis Carroll’s poems and books. They are a timeless jumble of contemporary and historical references drawn from Dodgson’s life and his fictional works.

Like Charles Dodgson and Lewis Carroll, they are simultaneously imaginary and real, fading from memory and becoming more vivid in the imagination with the passing of time.