Introducing:
BAB - Teaching eco-political urgency through play and interaction.
About the rules:
Designed as an interactive awareness campaign in which participants get to learn through play and personal experience, BAB tells the story of our modern pollinator crisis. Through the shape of an outdoor game, school classes and other game enthusiasts get to compete against each others in a game of life by taking on the role of pollinators fighting for the survival of their species.
In BAB, players get assigned into a duo of each species, having to complete a number of challenges in order to win. However, the end bares a catch: of all players, even the ones which have succesfully completed the game, 70% will "die" (loose) due to rigged external factors. These represent the very real situation of pollinators in the here and now, which are currently experiencing mass extinction, mainly due to current industrial agricultural practices and methods.
This rude awakening acts as a reminder of our vary grave current situation and attempts to instill the understanding that only one thing can truly prevent this from happening: radical change of our political framework in regards to agriculture. Because in the end:
If the pollinators go, so do we.
Click the image to pause and access an expanded overview.
Click the image to pause and access an expanded overview.
Click the image to pause and access an expanded overview.
Situating the project
BAB is designed to be playable with minimal material cost. As long as a large enough area get's prepped for play, everyone, from schools to NGOs and local or private organizations can host the game, making it a tool for eco-political education that is available to everyone.
BAB is scalable, ranging in group sizes from 8 to 40 players, as long as sufficient space and game organizers are available to oversee the safety and course of the game.
With the concept for BAB being completed at the end of January 2020, the game was originally intended to be pitched to local organizations so that it could be brought to life. However, this was prevented by the COVID-19 pandemic and social distancing measurements putting both schools and organizations into the home office work style.
Nowadays, with vaccines being available to the general public and Lucille graduating from MA DSISF, she is looking once again at reaching out to said stakeholders, to bring BAB to its target audience.