War Path, 2006–07

game with printed booklet, stickers and map, Tate Britain, London

War Path is a game designed for visitors to Tate Britain to play in the museum. I developed it collaboratively with a group of young people (aged 15–21), for Visual Dialogues, based in the education department. A machine placed next to a painting by Paul Nash dispensed the game in exchange for a penny. The player received a kit that included a booklet, stickers and a map of Tate Britain – leading them around various war-themed artworks in the collection and posing a moral question at each stop. The target was to determine whether the player was a dove or a hawk.

War Path was the result of an education project that I ran for Tate Britain. The young people and I were tasked with responding to an artwork by Mark Wallinger, titled State Britain (2007), about anti-Iraq-War protester Brian Haw. This led to a year of research into the condition of British democracy, which included field trips to the Houses of Parliament, the grave of William Blake, and 56a Infoshop (an anarchist social centre), among other sites, interviewing people along the way.