League Play Book

League Play Book serves both as documentation of Germaine Koh’s ongoing League project focused on play as a creative practice, and as a kind of workbook that could inspire more invention.

The book is released in free digital edition and a limited-edition bookwork. It is sized for a standard North American three-hole binder, and the bookwork with custom binding is in an edition of 200. Read and download the free PDF at https://germainekoh.com/league-play-book-2025.pdf.

The book is arranged into three sections: Analysis, Plays, and Practice.

The short essays of the Analysis section are written by artists, athletes, scholars, game designers and players who have intimate, lived understanding of the processes of invention and discovery that can develop through play. They share their experiences of the anatomy and dynamics of ingenuity; the culturally radical potential of play; creative mindsets; psychological and cognitive processing; and the situations and settings for discovery. Some analyze the mechanics of how invention and decision-making happen in their fields. Others address how play works to create possibility by revising conventions.

Jesse Birch writes on learning through mimicry in skateboarding, Koh proposes vulnerability and uncertainty as key elements. League collaborator Bruce Emmett shares his recollections of how innovation unfolded at League events in conversation with objects and places. Considering the production of artworks, James Long looks at virtuosic plays of implicit meaning, while Eliot White-Hill narrates his development of work in relation to the traditional forms of his Coast Salish heritage. Revising social conventions, Simona Dolinská describes the potential of neurodivergent play and Elizabeth Nijdam considers critical play. Focusing closely on decision-making, Ian Verchère analyzes the mechanics of progression in games and action sports, Lindsey Freeman writes on the mind games of distance running, and Meaghan Hackinen traces some decision-making in emergent sport.

The Plays section collects case studies written by participants, which outline the creative processes that produced some of League’s events and products. These are not recipes, but they do try to identify the key ingredients, conditions and prompts that encouraged creative decisions.

The Practice section includes worksheets, rooms for notes, and space for users to record their own plays.

 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. 

Creativity is the name of the game with the n Games– the ultimate playful event created for adults!

The n Games is an innovative tournament of invented urban games in which diverse teams attempt to “solve for n, the unknown quantity”. Groups from all over the Lower Mainland are invited to be one of the six teams to participate. We expect entries from teams of diverse backgrounds, ages and skill-sets to tackle this set of unique games invented by Simon Fraser University School for the Contemporary Arts students, Assistant Professor James Long, and artist Germaine Koh.

The n Games value play as a form of creative problem-solving, prompting teams to take unconventional approaches to challenges involving both mind and body. This event is a new urban-space edition of the n Games (which were first presented by Koh in 2013). These games are sponsored by Downtown Vancouver Business Improvement Association.

n Games 2024 graphic

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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PREDATOR-PREY 

A noctural game-playing night co-hosted by League, Manhunt! Vancouver, and Urban Animal Agency.

Join us at 5:30 PM near Second Beach on Thursday, November 19th, to improvise, invent and play chase- and tag- style games with an ecological theme. We’ll meet at the Urban Animal Agency Headquarters: the A-Frame at 8701 Stanley Park Drive. 

** Dress for outdoor Fall play and bring a flashlight! **
(We may invent games that use flashlights) 

We’ll have hot chocolate for everyone. 

League, launched by artist Germaine Koh, is an open group of people who gather to play sports and games invented by members of the community. Each game, its equipment, its playing field, and its strategies evolve through trial and improvisation. It’s problem-solving as play. http://league-league.org/ 

Manhunt has been active in Vancouver since 2005, we play a variety of schoolyard games in downtown Vancouver, like Manhunt, Capture the Flag, Sardines, etc. Manhunt attracts both the young the old, the slow and the fast, and is organized through a Facebook page and Meetup profile: http://www.meetup.com/Manhunt-Vancouver/

Urban Animal Agency is a collective of artists and ecologists interested in the ways that people and other animals collectively define urban spaces. We believe that it is possible to make artwork that can challenge, question and captivate, that can be informed by diverse ways of knowing, and that can be ecologically accountable. http://www.urbananimalagency.ca/

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League is participating in an exhibition of work by all the Vancouver Park Board Field House Residency artists:

The Vancouver Park Board invites you to

Field Guides

Opening Reception:  Thursday, Sept. 18, 5-8PM
Guest Speaker- Matt Hern 6:30 PM
Roundhouse Exhibition Hall 181 Roundhouse Mews

Field Guides marks the culmination of the first cycle of the Vancouver Parks Board’s Artists Fieldhouse Studio Program – an initiative that transformed former care-takers cottages in parks across Vancouver into studio space for artists with community engaged practices. Over 50 artists (solo and in collectives) in all disciplines have been working in 12 field houses across Vancouver, bringing art into the everyday life of community, by inviting neighbours, colleagues and curious visitors to share in creative work. Field Guides celebrates this three year collaboration highlighting the intimate, generous and adventurous work of artists and community members working together as producers, practitioners and audience.

League play day — Sunday 28 September

Elm Park, 3-5 pm

League is an open group that gathers to play invented games and sports as a practice of creative problem-solving. We gather on the last Sunday of each month to improvise and strategize new ways of interacting. Our gatherings are free and open to all. They call for physical and mental activity, so bring both body and mind.

Team Double Rainbow at League’s n Games

League summer sports day

Team Theatre Replacement at League’s n Games

Sunday 27 July, noon to 3pm
Vanier Park
off Chestnut Street, Vancouver
map: https://goo.gl/maps/NfSbj

Everyone wants to be by the water in the summertime, so League is decamping to Vanier Park for a summer sports day. Come in teams, wear your colours, and bring hydration. We’ll develop games for small groups, plus individual challenges. Also bring appropriate equipment if you have games to try or mashups in mind.

League is an open group that gathers on the last Sunday of the month to play invented games and sports as a practice of creative problem-solving. Our gatherings are free and open to all; bring both body and mind.

Want to stay informed about League events? Sign up for our more-or-less-monthly mailing list here.