Using the old street game of hopscotch as a participatory environment, players design their own versions of a hopscotch as a [mapscotch] game to explore and critique existing issues in social, preferably public, spaces, and construct a counter image of our future urbanity.
One instance of the instruction set is [bombscotch], focused on mass violence; another is focused on US military atrocities.
The potential for play to act as a tool for empowerment, community building, collaboration, and cultural change is a significant motivating factor in my location-based media projects. Play can always also be critical. Thinking that embodiment is a great means to experience such a critique by making challenging topics more visceral and experiential, I created[mapscotch], a set of rule-based, site-specific games which generate public discussion on contemporary social issues.
Exhibitions:
PLAYMODE exhibition at the MAAT – Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology in Lisbon, co-curated by Filipe Pais and Patricia Gouveia October 2019
Free Play exhibition, touring:
Push Play exhibition, Touring: January 12 – March 4 2017, Hedreen Gallery, Seattle 12 Oct – 31 Dec 2017, Vicki Myhren Gallery, University of Denver
Museum London in London, ON, Canada from January 30, 2016 – May 8, 2016; The Rooms, Provincial Art Gallery Division in St. John’s, NL, Canada from May 27, 2016 – August 28, 2016;
Push Play at Parsons Sheila C. Johnson Design Center at The New School in New York City, NY;
College of Wooster Art Museum January 18, 2015 – March 6; Art Gallery of Greater Victoria in Victoria, BC, Canada from April 25, 2015 – August 3, 2015
Handwerker Gallery, Ithaca College in Ithaca, NY from Oct 1, 2015 – Nov 6, 2015
Free Play exhibition at Arcadia University Art Gallery, Glenside PA 2014, Curated by Melissa E. Feldman
Conflux New York City 2007
Images
- bombscotch, part of the [mapscotch] series of critical hopscotches by Mary Flanagan
- bombscotch, part of the [mapscotch] series of critical hopscotches by Mary Flanagan
- bombscotch, part of the [mapscotch] series of critical hopscotches by Mary Flanagan
- bombscotch, part of the [mapscotch] series of critical hopscotches by Mary Flanagan
- bombscotch, part of the [mapscotch] series of critical hopscotches by Mary Flanagan
- bombscotch, part of the [mapscotch] series of critical hopscotches by Mary Flanagan
- bombscotch, part of the [mapscotch] series of critical hopscotches by Mary Flanagan
- bombscotch, part of the [mapscotch] series of critical hopscotches by Mary Flanagan
- bombscotch, part of the [mapscotch] series of critical hopscotches by Mary Flanagan