EU14 GAMES
Social Practices of Architecture and their Political Dimension
2024-2025
Tutor: Socrates Stratis
THE EU 14 GAME: PALESTINE’S COMMONS II (2024-2025)
This year's Critical Play Practice, E.U. 14, focuses on supporting the commons in the Palestinian West Bank and promoting solidarity by creating awareness in public spaces of European cities.
The pedagogical method of the "E.U. Critical Play Practice" urban game series encourages students to translate the logic of critical spatial practice into a playful environment. The concept of critical spatial practice rests on the fundamental principle of producing public space through the mediation of difference and the enactment of dissent. Critical spatial practice is based on agonistic praxis, whose aim is to bring hidden truths into the realm of the sensible, thereby forming new questions that contest the existing status quo of spatial injustice. In advocating for Palestine's Commons, the students had to face the following paradox: the hidden truth that they may successfully make visible in a hostile environment is immediately repressed by the current regime of control.
For this reason, the students were invited to adopt a two-sided performative approach in their design and implementation of the five board games: On the one hand, their games support the Commons in Palestine in a silent and unspoken way, and on the other hand, they create a public face of camouflage. Hence, the primary purpose of the playful practice is not to be immediately perceived, thus repressed by the relevant regime of control.
United Flip
Constantinos Papanicolaou
A board game that inverts the properties of the extractive game ‘Catan’ to promote solidarity in reconstructing the fragmented landscapes of the Palestinian West Bank. The players act against corporate and colonial agencies in urban reconstruction, encouraged by the game mechanics to cooperate with non-human entities in gathering resources and leveraging them for community resilience. The hexagons are placed on their black and white side (representing the destroyed landscape) and gradually flipped onto their colourful side, depending on the level of solidarity gained amongst the players.
madha
Team: Savvina Vorka, Marina Koiliari, Chara Theocharous
Madha means What? in Arabic. It is a board game that invites players to learn about everyday stories of young Palestinians living in the West Bank. Can the players guess how the young Palestinians are affected by the fractured Palestinian territory due to Israeli colonisation? They get the first part of the story, and they need to find out the rest. The board represents the fractured Palestinian territory, comprising areas A, B and C. The players can only guess the second part of the story when their pawns are located in Zone A, controlled by the Palestinian Authority. They need to watch out because Area C, controlled by the Israeli army, may abruptly expand.
Cards of Exception
Team: Marina Lambrianidou, Theodora Vasilea, Eleni Sergiou
A card game that helps the players understand Palestinian occupation by Israel through states of exception. A state of exception is produced when those in power suspend momentarily legal frameworks in the name of exceptional circumstances. The phrase was initially formulated by the German jurist Carl Schmitt to grant a right of law exemption to the Third Reich Nazi regime during war, allowing the regime to proceed with atrocities such as concentration camps and the war crimes of World War II. The players become familiar with examples of states of exception from all over the world, whether military, political, or urban. They are invited to use their imagination to pair cards with words and images to narrate powerful, inventive and emotional stories about a specific state of exception. You will be surprised how many states of exception are around you!
Crossroads of Power
Team: Gogo Savvidou, Panagiotis Anastasiou
Together we can/ endgame
Elia Alkhaier
Game story: You begin in a dangerous area for your lives with some closed ones friends etc. and you all share a dream and a destination of living, feeling and practically can say that you are free based on your people’s choice.
