Can video games change our understanding of what it means to be a refugee?

With displacement as a guiding theme, this will be an exploratory conversation looking at different ways in which video games can diversify our understanding of refugee experiences. The discussants will each be talking about some of their own projects — including the popular text-based game Bury Me, My Love — while exploring the values and challenges of bringing lived experience into game development, platforms for experimentation and cross-sector collaboration, and opportunities with interactive forms such as AR/VR. This will be an inspiring conversation for game designers, storytellers, art-ivists and narrative change-makers.

The discussion will be facilitated by Jennifer Estaris, Game Director of ustwo games (known for Monument Valley and Alba: A Wildlife Adventure) in conversation with: 

• Sindi Breshani – Co-founder of Episod Studio which is currently developing ‘Race for the Arctic’, a documentary game built with indigenous communities.
• Florent Maurin (via live feed) – Founder of The Pixel Hunt – a games design studio focused on reality-inspired games, including Bury Me, My Love, produced in collaboration with a Syrian refugee. 
• Malath Abbas (via lived feed) – Founder of Biome Collective, and currently producing ‘Hope’, a playful experience that documents his own journey as a refugee to the UK.

This event is presented by Counterpoints Arts as part of its PopChange Salon Series in collaboration with Now Play This (8-10 April 2022) — a festival of experimental game design held at Somerset House. This year’s theme explores the relationship between game design and democracy.

The PopChange Salon Series — presented by Counterpoints Arts’ Popchange initiative — are curated exchanges with change makers, storytellers and the entertainment industry to explore opportunities for harnessing pop culture for real social change. The Salon Series focuses on areas with momentum for narrative change in the UK — TV/film, gaming and comedy — with particular reference to themes of racial justice, migration and displacement.

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Links & More Info:

Get tickets to the Festival (£6.50-9) via Somerset House website: https://www.somersethouse.org.uk/whats-on/now-play-2022 

If you are interested in joining, we have a limited number of free tickets available. Get in touch with marcia@counterpoints.org.uk.

Watch online: https://twitch.tv/nowplaythis

Image credit: Bury Me, My Love © The Pixel Hunt