What if you could sit down with strangers and design the kind of world you actually want to live in? We are partnering with Marooning Bodies and the City of Santa Monica to host a gameplay session of this immersive world-building game, where communities come together to imagine new ways of living, caring for one another, and responding to challenges collectively.

Attendees will be divided into groups, and players will be guided through a series of questions and scenarios about how a society might organize itself. Together, you will make decisions about shared resources, community rituals, responses to harm, and systems of care. Along the way, you will be invited to reflect, discuss, and create through simple writing, drawing, movement, or storytelling prompts. At the end of the game, each of the groups will share their experience and outcomes with each other.

Marooning Bodies has been in development for four years and has been play-tested internationally in Ghana, Senegal, Morocco, and across North America, including at USC, CSU East Bay, National Sawdust Creative Forum in New York City, the Women and Dance Leadership Conference in Los Angeles, and Norco Prison. Over the course of its run, the game has generated collections of poetry, paintings, creation stories, a perfume series, dance rituals, and even academic dissertations.

This is not a performance and not a lecture. It is a facilitated, participatory experience designed to be welcoming to everyone. No art or game experience is required. Just bring your curiosity and willingness to imagine. Come as you are. Bring a friend. Leave having built a world with strangers.

This program is funded through the Recreation & Arts Department Art of Recovery Program.