A collaborative game, played with a group of people taking on the roles of different members of the various societies of Fain as they venture out of their Havens into the new world.
Artist David Blandy has worked closely with gaming communities in Essex to create this future world, devising creatures based on local wildlife and myth, and imagining societies that have evolved separately in vast underground Havens. Together they have used the format of the roleplaying game to create a collective story that imagines new ways of living together.
The work reflects on the geopolitics of the “oil shocks” of the 1970’s and the fall of the Shah in Iran alongside the Canvey Island protest against the refinery and planned airport; all events that have led to Canvey Wick’s present state as a beacon of biodiversity. If this small site in the East of England can recover from the excesses of the industrial world, this could be a model for how to find a way to deal with the threat of climate change that impacts us all. Of course Canvey Island can only ever be a temporary haven with the increasing threat from rising sea levels.
