From July 12-25, 2024, New City Arts presents Around the Table: Political play, agency, gamification, and other things we can learn from board games, an exhibition curated by Chandler Jennings. This exhibition is the culmination of Chandler’s Spring 2024 New City Arts Research Residency.
During his residency, Chandler continued developing a prototype of his tabletop game, Conxensus: a game of storytelling & political imagination.
New City Arts' Welcome Gallery
114 3rd St. NE, Charlottesville, VA 22902
Opening Reception
Friday, July 12 from 5-7:30PM; Artist performance at 6PM.
Free and open to the public. All ages welcome. Refreshments provided.
Gallery Hours
Wednesday-Saturday from 10AM-5PM
Exhibition Events
July 20: Curator Talk & Guided Playthrough of a prototype of Chandler’s game, Conxensus: a game of storytelling & political imagination. More information to come.
July 24 | 10-11AM: New City Arts & Crafts
Visitor Guide
This immersive exhibit invites visitors to explore a variety of ways of engaging with board games and the ideas around them. A series of stations are organized throughout the gallery, each introducing a different way of thinking about board games, the ideas circling around them and their powers and limitations as an art form. Each station includes some brief reading material, one or more games visitors can play, and an opportunity for visitors to react and respond. The goal is to provide a multilayered way of looking at board games that allows visitors to learn, touch, explore, interrogate, respond, and play. One station offers an opportunity to engage with Chandler’s ongoing game development project, titled Conxensus: A game of storytelling & political imagination.
Individual stations explore topics such as:
· A brief history of board games
· Game stuff: pieces, components, materials
· Settlers of Catan: colonialism and anticolonialism in games
· Playing the past: historical games
· Playing activism: political games
· The Magic Circle & how it doesn't exist
· Teaching (with) games
· Likes, clicks, retweets: social media and the gamification of life
The gallery space itself represents a kind of game, where each station represents an individual challenge along the way. Visitors have the chance to opt in to becoming “players” of the gallery itself, navigating the space in order to earn the most points.
Please note: some of the board games and individual exhibits will deal with serious topics, including colonial exploitation, slavery, police violence, and the traumas of war.
Exhibition Statement (courtesy of the artist):
Around the Table offers an immersive journey into the world of board games and the ideas they convey. The exhibit is organized into different stations based on Chandler's research, teaching, and game development work. Each station focuses on a different way of approaching board games, allowing the visitor to confront these seemingly simple cultural objects from multiple different angles. How have board games been used to convey ideas in the past? What does it mean to think of board games as art? How can games represent historical events responsibly? How do rules and points structure our lives? Visitors are encouraged to think about these questions as they learn about—and play—the games on display.
Read, play, and react your way through the different stations. All stations include some original writing, one or more board games that visitors are encouraged to sit and play, and also links to additional reading and watching. This exhibit is fully interactive. Please feel free to sit at the tables, handle the pieces, flip through the rulebooks, learn the games, and respond to the prompts. Games, after all, are meant to be played.
About the Artist (courtesy of the artist)
Chandler is a teacher, games-maker, and academic researcher whose work takes an exploratory and quizzical look at the concepts that underwrite political thinking and acting in the United States—concepts such as justice, freedom, truth, choice, and belief. His personal love of board games has led him to increasingly integrate games into his research and teaching.
In his academic research on games, Chandler explores the unique and surprising features of games as art. What ways of thinking, acting, and choosing do games make possible? How do games work differently from other media or art forms? And how can in-game experiences shape the ways that we think and act outside of a game's proverbial "magic circle"? These questions have led Chandler to his work on games that address serious topics, including real-world systems of oppression and historical tragedies. These games have informed his understanding of the possibilities and limitations of political play, and they have also been instrumental in informing the design of his game prototype, Conxensus: a game of storytelling & political imagination, on display in the gallery.
He has also integrated games into his teaching, developing a first-year writing course at UVA called "Tabletop Games, Culture, and Community." This course asked students to play board games, reflect on the social experience of learning a game, and analyze how the game's rules shape their actions and choices. By the end of the semester, students took these ideas beyond the table, looking for games and game-like elements in their lives at UVA (such as winning and losing, competition and cooperation, points as an incentive system, and rules).
Chandler holds a BA in English from Pomona College (2014) and a MA in English from the University of Virginia (2023). In fall of 2024, he will begin a PhD program in Religious Studies at Brown University. His favorite games include Ark Nova, Terraforming Mars, Decrypto, and Scout.
This exhibition is the culmination of a project of the New City Arts Research Residency Program. The New City Arts Spring Residency was supported by the Anne and Gene Worrell Foundation.
Located at 114 3rd St. NE on Charlottesville’s downtown pedestrian mall, New City Arts’ Welcome Gallery supports artists who live in the Charlottesville area. Welcome Gallery exhibitions and programs are made possible by generous sponsors, donors, and grants. Interested in sponsoring an exhibition? Connect with us!