TRUST IN PLAY: European School for Urban Game Designers (TiP) brings artists, game designers, playful auteurs, academics, municipal decision-makers and citizens together in a co-operational process of urban games creation.
Using playfulness, participatory design and creativity, the project explores methods of empowerment and artistic cooperation between different European stakeholders active in the urban play sector, as a means to improve the employability and financial sustainability of urban game designers. At the same time, TRUST IN PLAY highlights the fact that, through the co-creation of urban games, all stakeholders involved can contribute to reducing tension and fear in the pressure cooker that is a modern urban city today.
TRUST IN PLAY ventures to prove that, when equipped with the proper skills, aware of the particular needs of their audience and encouraged to co-create, urban game creators may become a new force of social inclusion.
By targeting short term (urban game designer sustainability) and long term issues (inclusion, unity and trust in public space), the project:
• helps artists/urban game designers “up their game” and expand their artistic and entrepreneurship skills,
• familiarizes citizens/players with new ways to interact in their shared urban space and
• enables the visibility of these interactions by the public sector, policy makers and established cultural organizations, enabling sustainability for the urban play sector as a whole.
TRUST IN PLAY assists and promotes the skills, work and creative opportunities of urban artists and urban game designers, bringing them into the next phase of professional maturity and creating a positive effect on social cohesion and the reduction of mistrust in European Cities, through inclusive playful art and urban games.
Final Event
On Sept 24th, 2020 the Lectorate of Civic Interaction Design hosted with the Pakhuis de Zwijger a final event for the project: Trust in Play: European School of Urban Game Design. As cities become more and more complex, there’s the risk of losing the “human touch” in how we relate to our neighbours. Could playful experiences in urban public spaces play a role in establishing new relationships of trust? Watch the full video below and discover the 3 exciting urban games that the Trust in Play Amsterdam branch developed during the past year.