The exhibit is the game of Risk glued mid-game in four parts and the game of Risk reinterpreted on four additional parts. Simple card tables with folding chairs will invite visitors to sit down opposite a stranger or friend. Looking at a game across the table from another without being able to play the game informs the visitor about the experience of life. How we play games, or work, or focus on things to avoid focusing on the “others” in our lives. There’s an intense frustration experienced by some who want to play the game out. Others feel the need to dissect what came before. But the only moment is now. Some are reminded of war. Others remember their family game night. It’s a magical thing to watch people start talking about the omni-presence of games in their lives.
I want a romance like a great western where the cowboy risks everything to build a life for his family and just as the cattle are ready to ride to market the floods come in the night and almost carry them all away but the wife goes into the fields with her husband and works with him to close the gate and move the herd and they save the ranch from certain ruin and the next night he sings a cowboy song about lonesome doggies by the fire just as the baby cries from inside the house and a little girl says Mama, the new baby wants to be out here with the family and everyone laughs because they have a new life together and everything will be a wonderful struggle and they know they’re alive and loved. Is it too much to ask for?
