Games, Art, and Critical Play: An Interview with Mary Flanagan

This interview with Mary Flanagan, Sherman Fairchild Distinguished Professor of Digital Humanities at Dartmouth College, explores the intersections of art, games, and critical play across her career as an artist, scholar, and game designer. Flanagan traces her development from a childhood of imaginative world-building and family board games to graduate work in film and media, where her encounters with interactive CD-ROMs and the Fluxus movement shaped her commitment to playful, provocative art. She distinguishes "critical play" as the deliberate use of play environments to question aspects of human life, and she situates this practice within a longer history that includes Alberto Giacometti's unwinnable game boards and the subversive absurdism of Dada, a movement she credits with recognizing several women artists who were otherwise marginalized.

The interview covers Flanagan's major projects and tools. Tiltfactor, the social impact game lab she has directed for two decades, creates evidence-based games addressing pandemics, health care quality, gender bias, and inclusion in science. Grow-a-Game, a speculative design card deck developed through the Values at Play project, helps designers foreground human values such as equity and sustainability. Her artworks, including the ten-foot giantJoystick and the Mapscotch series of participatory hopscotch instructions, emphasize collaboration, embodiment, and social engagement.

A substantial portion of the discussion addresses colonialism in board games, the focus of Flanagan's 2023 book with Mikael Jakobsson, Playing Oppression. The authors examine how 4X strategy games, beginning with Stellar Conquest in 1975, embed colonial logics of exploration and extermination, and they argue that such assumptions have been treated as neutral by designers and critics alike. Flanagan also highlights recent games that challenge these legacies, including Wingspan, Spirit Island, and Coyote & Crow, while offering practical advice for designers pursuing social impact.