[mapscotch]
ongoing performance series
dimensions variable
2012
With hopscotch as a starting point, players either design their own versions of a [mapscotch] or encounter one in the gallery. Twenty years’ worth of my [mapscotch] instructions are collected in a book that’s published in three languages.
I am interested in the way that embodied play can act as a tool for empowerment, community building, collaboration, and cultural change. In my location-based projects. Play can always also be critical. Embodiment is a great means to experience such a critique by making challenging topics more visceral. [mapscotch] uses rules to generate contemplative personal experienced to public discussion on contemporary social issues.
These are instruction-artworks, materialized in chalk or more permanently with decals. They create a magic circle in broad daylight, giving the player permission to step in and imagine.
[mapscotch: bombscotch] is one of the instruction sets that is particularly popular. It asks players to draw and remember instances of US military atrocities.
Exhibitions
- Playmode, Bank of Brazil Cultural Center, Belo Horizonte, Brazil touring: Belo Horizonte, 30 March to 7 June 2022; Rio de Janeiro, 19 July to 12 October 2022; São Paulo 25 October 2022 to 9 January 2023; Brasília 1 February to 2 April 2023
- Mapscotch happening (performance), Organon 3 Handbook launch, Berlin Felldfünf, 15 July 2021
- Playmode, Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology in Lisbon, Portugal, October 2019
- 52 Artists 52 Actions, Confinementscotch (critical hopscotch on video), Artspace, Sydney, Australia, January 2018- January 2019
- Push Play, Vicki Myhren Gallery, University of Denver, Denver, Colorado, October 12 – December 31 2017
- Push Play, Hedreen Gallery, Seattle, Washington, January 12 – March 4 2017
- Museum London, London, Ontario, Canada, January 30 – May 8 2016
- The Rooms, Provincial Art Gallery Division in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, May 27 – August 28, 2016
- Free Play, College of Wooster Art Museum January 18 – March 6 2015
- Free Play, Art Gallery of Greater Victoria in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, April 25 – August 3 2015
- Free Play, Handwerker Gallery, Ithaca College in Ithaca, New York, October 1 – November 6 2015
- Free Play, Arcadia University Art Gallery, Glenside, Pennsylvania, 2014
- Free Play (Public Street Game), ICI, Henry Gallery, Seattle, Washington, June 2013
- Conflux Festival, New York, New York, 2007
Press
“MAAT’s Playmode Exhibition Intertwines Art and Games,” Cool Hunting, January 13 2020.
Marchese, Kieron. “ ‘ping pond’ and other twisted classics at MAAT’s playmode exhibition,” Designboom, January 12 2020.