Un-Monopoly
Shaghayegh Kamyar, Aidin Bagheri
- Period
- 2019
- Location
- Platform 3, Tehran
Project Overview
Un-Monopoly is a critical redesign of the board game Monopoly, created in response to the University of Tehran's development plan and the resistance of residents of the surrounding neighborhoods. The project's idea began with observing the process by which houses were expropriated and the fabric of neighborhoods, which had for years been left in limbo created by this plan, was gradually transformed. In this version, many of Monopoly's core mechanisms are altered. Money, buying and selling, and the accumulation of capital have been removed entirely and have given way to appropriation, resistance, and reclaiming. The university, as the game's driving force, gradually seizes houses, lands, and neighborhoods, and the players, in the role of residents, try, through movement across the board, collective decision-making, and in-game actions such as sit-ins, resistance, and legal recourse, to take them back.
Context & Site
The project's idea took shape at the same time as the protests and the residents' resistance against the University of Tehran's development plan. The plan for the physical development of the University of Tehran, first proposed in the 1990s with the aim of increasing educational space, began in the 2000s with the expropriation and purchase of lands within the university's perimeter. In 2015, the plan's aim shifted to revenue generation and the university's financial independence and to establishing knowledge-based companies, and its name was changed to "the City of Knowledge, the Entrepreneurial, Green and Smart University." These changes brought on a wave of protests from long-standing residents of the fabric.
The work was shown as a participatory game in the exhibition "University" at Platform 3, and later passed from hand to hand among those interested. In the artist's words, the exhibition space merely provided a setting in which this subject could be discussed in a more formal environment.
Participation & Process
Each round of the game lasted about one to two and a half hours and was designed for two to six players. Unlike the original Monopoly, no player could win alone; the game was designed so that progress was possible only through cooperation, dialogue, consensus, and collective presence, and the more players there were, the greater their collective force became. What led to victory was not individual intelligence or competition but the ability to form consensus and take collective action. The game's cards gave players information about property rights and related laws, and situations had been built in that obliged participants to talk and decide collectively.
The game's mechanism was such that, as the players moved, the university's activities to advance the plan also began, through cards turned over with each move; cards with content such as threatening or detaining opponents, offering high-interest loans to those harmed, or promising a temporary halt to the plan. In this game, winning and losing were collective: either everyone won, or everyone lost together. Blank cards were also included so that players could talk among themselves about strategies the designers had not anticipated and, if needed, add them to the flow of the game.
The artist's role, more than directly guiding the game, was designing a mechanism; after each round began, players could carry the game forward on the basis of the rules in the guidebook and without her presence. Nevertheless, the project's main challenge was the complexity of the guidebook in the first version; this complexity meant that part of the game time was spent, instead of on collective dialogue, on grasping the mechanisms and rules.
Motivations & Questions
In the thick of the university's development plan, in the artist's words, what mattered was not merely critiquing a single urban project but the mechanisms through which power, law, and ownership can rewrite the rules of collective life. The choice of the participatory form arose from precisely this: the artist wanted participants, through play, decision-making, encounter with rules, and the experience of the consequences of their own choices, to experience the issue practically and to talk about the various possibilities of collective action, rather than merely receiving information or a critical position.
Some questions also remained for the artist:
To what extent can a game become a ground for learning, dialogue, and the practice of collective action? Can its participatory experience have an effect beyond the time of the game on the way participants think, and have a deep impact in raising awareness?
Documentation
Collaborators & Support
The design and idea of the game came from Shaghayegh Kamyar and Aidin Bagheri (sociologist and project collaborator), and in the course of design it drew on the consultation of Mohammad Zarei in the area of game design. Aidin Bagheri also served as curator of the exhibition. The work was presented in the exhibition "University" at Platform 3, and the participants were players who entered the game in the role of neighborhood residents.
The project was produced independently and without financial support.
Further Resources
Introduction to the "Un-Monopoly" project, Sarkhoshi (in Persian).
Report on the "University" exhibition, Etemad Online (in Persian).
About the Artist
Shaghayegh Kamyar (Tehran, 1986) is an interdisciplinary artist and researcher. She holds a BA in set design and an MA in art research. Her works mainly address the relationship between art, play, participation, public space, and collective life, and, depending on the needs of each project, she uses media such as games, performance, installation, photography, video, and research. A significant part of her practice rests on designing situations in which the audience is not merely a viewer but becomes one of the elements that shape the work.
Instagram: @Shaakaam_
This entry was prepared based on documentation and texts provided by the artist.