disobedience rules at parliament house

we went to parliament house, canberra as part of future/forward, nava (national association for the visual arts)’s national visual arts gathering. we ran a session inside the belly of the beast gamifying the politics of policy change, delivering a bespoke version of disobedience rules, a new game on civil disobedience recently previewed in South Africa as part of the Vryfees Kunstefest. Presented as a board game, players take on the roles of artist, arts organisation, government, opposition and media, in order to explore policy change through a variety of lenses.

How can we understand the politics of policy change if all too often it seems like a game being played in the opaque obscurity of Canberra? By playing that game. We see disobedience rules as serious play, and hope the players and audience gain new ways of thinking about policy change, and new perspectives and ideas around how to make changes and connect with politicians that could have a real world impact.

With a handful of players on the stage and one hour on the clock, pvi MC’d the game and feedback was determined via an audience shoutocracy – so pretty much just like federal politics.

As the dice roll and the action starts, will their campaign ideas have any impact? What will it take to enact policy change? And whose interests will ultimately be served?

pvi collaborated with Esther Anatolitis, the Executive Director of NAVA, to create this NAVA specific version of the artwork.

see more photos here.