Pawns, 2025, found and altered objects, crate and trunk

Nanaimo Art Gallery and off-site
1 August – 5 October 2025

From Nanaimo Art Gallery website: League Nanaimo is a project led by Vancouver and Saltspring Island based artist Germaine Koh that unites creative process and play. Community members of all ages are invited to gather and exercise creativity by developing new games and sports through iterative, embodied activities. Games evolve organically as they are played, and strategies emerge through trial and improvisation, and sometimes new tools are invented on the fly.

Koh’s playful art installation turns Nanaimo Art Gallery into an experimental arena of sorts where visitors are welcome to jump, throw, dance, run, and touch; all actions that are usually frowned upon in art museums. In this space, that is a cross between a hockey rink, a dance hall, a tennis court, and an archery range, you are invited to interact with objects and markings, and with each other, and could find yourself developing your own games.

The Gallery also serves as a hub for community outreach as the artist and Gallery facilitators bring League Nanaimo into the broader community. During the run of the exhibition, League activities not only take place in the gallery, but also at Nanaimo parks. Listings of events are available on our website, and at the Gallery.

Launched by Germaine Koh in 2012, League is an art project that shares creative process rather than finished artworks. Processes of learning, adapting, and iterating are central to the overall concept. League invites us to experience the similarities between the improvisation, negotiation, reflection, and critical thinking that happen both in sport and art-making. The project is based in a belief that games, sport and play are serious forms of problem-solving and even problem-making.

League Nanaimo is the third exhibition through which Nanaimo Art Gallery asks the question: How can we play together?

FLEET: League Creative Play Day

Sunday 11 August 2024, 2-5 pm
FLEET Edmonds
located in Edmonds Park

Bring both body and mind to League at Edmonds Park in Burnaby for an innovative gathering to practice creative problem-solving through play. Since it’s also the last day of the Olympic Games, bring a piece of fabric you could use as an improvised flag.

League is an initiative that uses play as a way to develop creativity. It is a series of free, all-ages meetups in which community members invent and play new games and sports. Participants exercise creativity through improvised, embodied problem-solving and problem-making. Everyone is welcome, whether or not you are a gamer, athlete or artist.

At this first League event in Burnaby, we will warm up by playing some games invented at previous gatherings, and play together to evolve and test new ones. The afternoon will be facilitated by League founder and FLEET contributor Germaine Koh, collaborators, and our hosts Burnaby Public Art.

All ages welcome to drop in to play at Edmonds Park near the FLEET studio between 2pm and 5pm on Sunday August 11.

League 15 June 2024 “Rain or Shine” graphic

Rain or Shine: around these parts, it’s one or the other. So bring an umbrella/parasol, and we’ll use those as a starting point.

League is a free and open gathering to invent and play new games and sports. We exercise embodied, improvised, creative problem-solving and problem-making. 

Join us at Hadden Park Field House on Saturday 15 June, 10 am – 2 pm, with @germkoh, other @leaguevan collaborators, and our friends at @publiksecrets. 

We have a new League newsletter, which will go out no more than once a month. Sign up here. 

LEAGUE is a community-based initiative dedicated to the creative power of collective play and making. First initiated at Elm Park Field House by artist Germaine Koh and expanding to include a revolving cast of collaborators and participants, LEAGUE events are open to everyone who is open to the unpredictability of play. Just bring both body and mind.

 League at Hadden Park, 16 March 2024

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Two League events exploring cooperation…

Sunday 27 April — League play — Prisoner’s Dilemma

“Stuffie Dilemma,” a game developed with Bruce Emmett’s high school students at a League workshop in February 2013

Noon to 2pm at Elm Park

Prisoner’s Dilemma is a conundrum used in game theory to consider situations in which individuals might choose not to cooperate, even if it might be in their best interests to do so.

The protoypical situation: two gang members are arrested for a major crime and kept separated from each other. The police explain to each of them that there is not enough evidence to convict them on the main charge without one of them confessing, but they can both be convicted on a lesser charge. If one confesses, he will be set free and the other convicted for the maximum sentence. If both confess, they will both be convicted, but serve fewer years. If neither defects, they both serve less time on the lesser charge.

Many specific strategies and real-life examples of cooperation and betrayal have been identified as types of prisoners’ dilemma. For this League play day we’ll explore some of them.

League events are free of charge and open to all. We gather to play sports and games as a practice of creative problem solving. Each game, its equipment, its playing field, and its strategies evolve through trial and improvisation. Drop in prepared for action.

Tuesday 29 April — PushupKucha

7pm at Elm Park field house, 5837 Larch Street (map)

PushupKucha is a new active salon concept that plays on the short presentation format, augmenting ideas with practice. Not only do PushupKucha presenters convey their ideas in a few short minutes, but they also include physical audience action.

The first edition of PushupKucha will take place in and around the Elm Park field house on Tuesday 29 April at 7pm.

Presenters tackling questions of cooperation and neighbourliness are:

• Matt Hern, author of One Game At A Time: Why Sports Matter
• Adrienne Pierce and Ari Shine, the musician collaborators known as The Royal Oui
• Justin Langlois of Windsor-based Broken City Lab, a collective whose creative practice leans towards civic change
• Members of the Mill Community Project concerned with the presently-buried Inglewood “Mill” skatepark in West Vancouver.
• Nick Boulding, teacher in Take A Hike adventure-based education program for youth at risk.

Audience:  Come prepared for action. Attendance will be limited; join the facebook event here.

 

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December is board game month at League. The challenge is to invent new board, card, or table games. We can either jam with existing game materials, play-test ideas that individuals bring, or invent new game equipment. The “League Home Edition” kit of parts is available to get ideas rolling.

Work/play in your own groups, or come to one of the open gatherings at the Elm Park field house:

• Tuesday December 10, 6-8 pm: with special guests R&D Straker, whose Kickstarter-funded board game Escape from Sunset Island: Zombie Apocalypse Simulator is currently in development.
• Sunday December 15, 3-6 pm: game jam. Amongst other games, we’ll be working/playing on a game relate to moon phases for grunt gallery later that week.

Then come join us to play and for some seasonal festivities at at the grunt‘s  Early Winter Solstice Party on Thursday December 19.

Moon phases

Tuesday 26 November, 7:00-8:30 pm
Elm Park field house (sold out)

League regular Matthew from Mushboo is leading a workshop on how to cultivate gourmet and medicinal mushrooms using regular kitchen items. This event is for those with an introductory level of knowledge about fungi and mushrooms.

Participants will learn about the mushroom life cycle; simple growing medium preparation; sterilization methods; inoculation (planting) using liquid and dry methods; cloning from a fresh specimen; fungi in your garden; and identifying mushrooms.

FUSE: Crowd Studies at the Vancouver Art Gallery

Art | Music | Performance at the Vancouver Art Gallery
Friday 29 November
8:00 pm to 1:00 am

FUSE is the Vancouver Art Gallery’s late-night art, music and live performance event, always featuring live performances in the gallery spaces, DJs, eclectic gallery tours and unexpected surprises.

“This FUSE brings the sociability of the artist to the forefront, as relationships are built and explored in a variety of site-specific, socially-charged practices that maintain unique relationships to human interaction.”

Watch for League’s participatory game-like scenarios outside and through the galleries, culminating in a session game invention in the fourth-floor gallery.

Sports Day in Canada

Saturday 30 November, 3:00 pm
Kerrisdale Community Centre
5851 West Boulevard, Vancouver

Sports Day in Canada is a national celebration of sport at all levels, from grassroots to high performance, and a change to celebrate the power of sport, build community, and facilitate active living.

For Sports Day in Canada, League’s regular monthly play date moves over to the nearby Kerrisdale Community Centre, to introduce new groups to our style of creative problem-solving through play.

December is board game month at League

The depths of winter is a time for board games. For the month of December League will be running a board-game invention challenge. Some groups will be lent the “League Home Edition” kit of board game parts (developed by League regular Ian), and challenged to come up with a new board game. We’ll gather to play all the new games at our regular League play day at the end of the month. Contact us if you want to borrow the kit, or get together with friends or colleagues to come up with your own.

Play equipment for League’s recent event, The n Games, Nuit Blanche edition

Saturday 26 October, noon-2:00 at Great Northern Way Campus
Part of Culture + Community event
Access off East 1st Avenue

Sunday 27 October, noon-3:00 at Elm Park
Regular League play day

This weekend League focuses on urban games for groups, with two play events open to all.

Saturday 26 October we participate in Vancouver’s annual Culture + Community symposium, in which citizens, practitioners, and community leaders consider the impact of culture in the urban environment. League’s contribution will be to put action to thoughts, drawing participants out to the Great Northern Way campus for games that make use of that partially rebuilt industrial space. (In case of rain, we will be in the gym of St. Francis Xavier school, across the street.)

Sunday 27 October, our regular play day, we bring those games back to our Elm Park location. As usual, expect the games and equipment to continue to evolve.

League is a community-based art project that gathers people to invent games and play made-up sports as a practice of creative problem-solving, negotiation, and everyday performance. The games, equipment and space all change through play. Our gatherings, on the last Sunday of every month, are free and open to all; bring both body and mind.

When: 7pm Saturday 5 October to 7am Sunday 6 October
Where:  Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, 952 Queen Street West, Toronto

The n Games is a tournament of invented sports in which players test their teamwork, strategic skills, and adaptability by playing invented games they do not know. This version of The n Games will be presented in the courtyard of the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art for Scotiabank Nuit Blanche, an all-night contemporary art extravaganza in Toronto.

It will be an ongoing pick-up game involving the audience as participants, as well as local teams such as the Toronto Roller Derby D-VAS. The games to be played will range from vigorous to cerebral, straightforward to strategic, and will ultimately test the players’ abilities to creatively tackle challenges with both mind and body.

The n Games is presented by League, a community-based art project that gathers people to play invented games and sports as a form of creative problem-solving. For the Nuit Blanche edition of The n Games, we have partnered with the Department of Biological Flow experimental research-creation collective.

Advance press

- Sue Carter Flinn, Toronto Life, “Nuit Blanche 2013 Guide: 15 must-see spectacles at Toronto’s eighth annual all-night art crawl”, 30 September 2013.
- Canadian Art, “10 Artists’ Nuit Blanche Tips & Troubles“, 3 October 2013.
- Murray White, Toronto Star, “Nuit Blanche 2013: Shots in the dark“, 3 October 2013.
Jonathan Zettel, CTV Toronto, “Scotiabank Nuit Blanche: 10 things to see at the art-after-dark show“, 4 October 2013.

Update

Germaine’s play report is here.

The n Games Vancouver edition

Were you looking for information about the inaugural Vancouver edition of The n Games this past September? Go here for information about the tournament and here for a tournament report.