“It is important that we meet each other, and to meet new people the public space is a very good place to start,” says founder of the PingOut initiative, Anders Find, a photojournalist based in Denmark.
PingOut is a project that installs ping pong tables around the city of Copenhagen. A simple concept with a significant social impact, PingOut combines art with a popular social activity to create a sense of community in a public space.
Find first camp up with the idea on encountering a group of old punks living under a ping pong table in a park in Berlin. The table is open to anyone who wants to stop by and play a game and Find was struck by its positive influence on the community.
Together with furniture designer Troels Øder Hansen, Find came up with a plug-and-play ping pong table that was durable and portable enough for people to install wherever they want. Hansen explains the concept of the design:
“A table made in one piece, which does not require maintenance. At the same time we wanted it to have a large surface suitable for decoration by local artists.”
Various local artists have put their stamps on the tables dotted around the city with distinctive graffiti or street art.
