South Co-op
Research-based gameplay & participatory performance
 

Host: Wu Chi-Yu, Rikey Tenn
 
“That’s one small step for the settlement, and one big leap for the southern sphere.”
 
South Co-op is a board game designed based on the historical framework of modern colonization during the Japanese occupation. Participating players will revisit the grandiose 40th Anniversary of the Ruling Expo in Taiwan with the performative guidance from artists to experience the era of massive reclamation and speculate new narratives from the hidden pavilions. As a member of this co-op, players will regard the notion of “terra nullius” and the research on the tropical industries at the heart of their motivation to control the abundant resource from the island. Growing high-value cash crops, reclaiming mountains and forests, and processing crops can be all crucial means to advance the southern colony.
 
At the game’s outset, players will commence their planting plans with limited manpower. Some species are developed from local research on useful plants, while others are high-value cash crops introduced from elsewhere. Regardless of the crop, growth and competition will occur in the south. Formulating different strategies for crop development, facing environmental challenges, and historical transformations in each round, players may face setbacks or even enhance values, contributing new variables in the ecology of the south.
 
This board game, designed based on historical research, is hosted and guided by Wu Chi-Yu and Rikey Tenn. Participating players, through speculative strategies, see history as the future, engaging in an interactive rethinking of the dialectics between humans and nature, seeking diverse anti-imperialistic imaginations, collectively scripting the true future that awaits us.
 

This event is sponsored by the National Culture and Arts Foundation.