Escapism is an artistic and socio-critical experiment, connecting virtual and physical spaces in the form of interactive games. The project (re)creates personal and collective realities in which the audience playing the games are required to reflect on their position within the current systems of social and state mechanisms of alienation and oppression. ESCAPISM engages itself in the intersection of the intimate and the structural. It points to the colliding moments between realities and imaginations. In a process of collective learning, four artists based in different parts of the world developed their explorative visions in a rigorous process of exchange and collaboration with fellow artists, game developers and mentors spanning over six months.

 

In a process of collective learning the four artists of ESCAPISM téa boyarchuk, Izdihar Afyouni, Sol Martínez-Solé and Avita Maheen developed their explorative visions into four hybrid games. They concretized their ideas in digital as well as physical spheres through exchanges, workshops, and collaboration with fellow artists, programmers, technicians, and mentors. The artists are based in different parts of the online and offline worlds and the largest part of the development and production process has been enabled through remote, digital communication – which makes ESCAPISM hybrid and experimental in its essence.The projects (re-)create personal and collective realities in which players

  • are required to explore memories and stories

  • will be unsettled by sensory and aesthetic stimuli

  • have to reflect on their standings within the current systems

  • must confront the social and state mechanism of oppression

  • are required to resist, deconstruct, liberate, and heal.



The four projects engage themselves in the intersection of the intimate and the structural. They point to the colliding moments between realities and imaginations. The medium – a computer game played in an immersive physical environment – likewise manifests such intersection, where the individual players constitute the broader network of gamified experience of these artworks. After a series of development phases that began in May 2021, ESCAPISM launched as an immersive exhibition in DEC 2021 with four interactive games played online and offline at Oyoun.

 

‘tarare’ is a linear, narrative-based game by téa boyarchuk that leads the audience through the destructive domains of colourism and texturism. the prevalence and the fatalistic goal of attaining white beauty adjacency drives the narrator down the rabbit hole, asking the audience what the conditions are for true and earnest self-love.

“Guacuco” is a short dream about returning to your home and making space for better things: “In this small seaside diorama I explore what it means to me to hold onto traumatic memories, and what it feels to re-visit and let go. It’s a form of having a conversation with myself about my relationship with my gender, my ethnicity, and the way society has reacted to and shaped my history as I navigate it.”- Sol Martínez-Solé, creater Guacaco

“Thicker Than Blood Digital” by Izdihar Afyouni is an immersive installation and interactive digital artwork that interrogates the abuse of language and affective technologies by state mechanisms - and how we allow ourselves to become complicit in justifying and reproducing state violence.

“Embryonic Babies of Hot Winters” questions a questionable past, present and foreseeable future. The project is characterized by storytelling and cinematic experiences and transcends that to both a gamified and a spatial cinematic experience.

 

ESCAPISM TEAM :

Artistic Director: Madhumita Nandi

Artistic Director Digital: Rachel Uwa

Conceptual Development: Nina Martin

Curatorial Assistant: Dami Choi

Experts, Mentors and Collaborators: Lawrence Monroe Marable, Jeremy Diamond, Meredith Thomas, Rafia Shahnaz, Marie LeBlanc Flanagan, Kike Ayoola, gabbah baya, Helin Ulas, Alex Klepton, Raymond Jennings, Valentin Kellein, Amos Peled, Daniel del Río, Javier Calderón, avyary, Yuki Kojima, Carlos Serrano

Graphic Designer: Rita Eperjesi

Photographers: Anna Wysomierska and Medine Tidou

This project is funded by the Fonds Soziokultur from the program of the BKM “NEUSTART KULTUR”.