By Michael Hall
Janette Kim, a professor of architecture at the California College of the Arts, recently visited UC Santa Barbara Film and Media Studies students in the class “Green Games,” to demonstrates her life-sized board game "Bartertown" which illustrates how climate change affects society.
“I make board games about climate change,” Kim said, “because I’m interested in seeing how architecture and the design of cities can work with economies, policies and social movements in ways that can actually support social justice and different power dynamics within the city.”
"Green Games" is a course developed by Film and Media Studies associate professor Alenda Chang, whose core research concerns environmental media. Chang has combined environmental studies, media studies, and game design into one hands-on course, being offered for the first time this fall. She invited Kim to the class session. Please click on the video above to see it in action.
Kim created this particular game for the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission, which decides what gets built on the area’s waterfront. The commission uses the game to facilitate more “productive and free-thinking” meetings with the their inter-agency partners as well as the Bay Area community, Kim said.
Michael Hall is a fourth year Film and Media Studies major at UC Santa Barbara. He is a Web and Social Media Intern for the Division of Humanities and Fine Arts.