A World of Playfulness

A World of Playfulness

Mathias Poulsen@mathiaspoulsen

CounterPlaywww.counterplay.org

#NextLibraryPlay

My guiding question has always been:

#NextLibraryPlay

How do we help people to become empowered citizens, able to act & influence the world?

“The world faces global

challenges, which require

global solutions”

#NextLibraryPlay

http://www.globaleducationfirst.org/

For years, games & learning was my primary approach to this.

…in a way, I came away disappointed.

#NextLibraryPlay

Games tend to shift focus away from what it’s all about:

PEOPLE!#NextLibraryPlay

That’s why I founded the CounterPlay Festival & NGO

#NextLibraryPlay

We build on the claim that playfulness is important everywhere & for all

people!

#NextLibraryPlay

Why playfulness

?#NextLibraryPlay

I think playful people might be better

equipped to live in this world

#NextLibraryPlay

"it's wrong to think of playing as the interruption of ordinary life. Consider instead playing as the underlying, always there, continuum of experience”

#NextLibraryPlay

What charactizes playful people?

CuriosityCourage

UnpredictabilityEmpathy

Imagination

Resilience

#NextLibraryPlaySubversiveness

“To play fully & imaginatively is to step sideways into another reality, between the

cracks of ordinary life”

#NextLibraryPlay

“playful behaviour and playful thought can generate radically new approaches to challenges set by the physical and social environment”

(Bateson & Martin)

#NextLibraryPlay

Playful people does not seek order or

equilibrium, but embrace the constant

movement

#NextLibraryPlay

“Playfulness means taking over a world to

see it through the lens of play, to make it shake and laugh and crack

because we play with it” (Sicart, 2014)

#NextLibraryPlay

What does this mean – for libraries & all of us??

#NextLibraryPlay

The most important thing is not more games or (amazing!) playgrounds or…

#NextLibraryPlay

Internally:

#NextLibraryPlay

Could you embrace playfulness as a strategy in the transformation of

libraries?

#NextLibraryPlay

Externally:

Could you create libraries that to an even greater extent help people become more playful?

Let’s talk!@mathiaspoulsen

[email protected]

Have an AMAZING Next conference – and don’t forget to

play!