series of game designs | 2021 - present
Our current work challenges the internalized sexism and self-limiting beliefs taught through one of society’s earliest and most insidious avenues: games. This two-part body of work borrows the language of advertising and hijacks familiar products to beat the insidious nature of misogyny at its own game.
Reimagining elements of games and play such as Perfection, Sorry, the Game of Life, and Barbie dolls, this work comments on how from an early age, women are encouraged to believe that a reductive set of pink-colored experiences is their only option for satisfaction in life. At the heart of the games examined in this body of work is the empty promise that women will win in life if they behave in a certain way or tamp down their expectations to fit a prescribed notion of a “model woman.”
Part one of this body of work presents CROTCH: Games for Everyone, a remaking of existing games created through a feminist lens and with a healthy dose of humor. Some of these games satirize popular views of women in our culture, while others promote more self-assured ways of dealing with people socially.
Part two, Girls Just Want to Have Fun, features living sculptures and video installations created from repurposed toys and game pieces. This work visualizes the crippling pressure of impossible expectations stacked upon women and the seductive nature of outside forces that promise to provide guidance at the cost of women’s independent sense of self.
Guess Who - Is your nipple round? Is your nipple brown?
Poster (36 x 24 inches), game box (11 x 11 x 2 inches), two game boards, 45 face and mystery cards
Simon Says - Smile.
Poster (36 x 24 inches)
Don’t Say It - Only You Can Prevent Unnecessary Apologies
Poster (36 x 24 inches)
Non-Gendered Insults - Cursing is not about gender.
Poster (36 x 24 inches), game box (8 x 6 x 1 1/2 inches), two decks of Crotch cards, and two Crotch dice
SPLAIN-O - Don’t worry sweetie. I’ll explain it to you.
Poster (36 x 24 inches), game box (9 x 9 x 9 inches), rotary cage, 75 SPLAIN-O balls, ball tray, SPLAIN-O cards, SPLAIN-O chips
Crotch - Because we all have one.
Poster (36 x 24 inches), game box (4 x 4 x 2 inches), 48 icebreaker cards, bomb chips, CROTCH spinner
No Means No - And other things we shouldn’t have to say twice
Poster (36 x 24 inches)
Karen - Can I Speak to a Manager?
Poster (36 x 24 inches), game box (12 x 12 x 4 inches), dice and shaker, score cards, dice tray