It's the game that lets you compete for 'sweet art money' while learning how grants work

The new class of Canadian theatre-makers might be stuck at home like the rest of us, but the COVID-19 crisis won't stop them from doing what they love. So when the pandemic struck, the National Theatre School launched Art Apart. Its mission: support projects by emerging artists. Some 100 applicants from across the country have already received a $750 grant from Art Apart. And now, their shows are ready for an audience. Every week, CBC Arts will put the spotlight on one of these original works.

Artists: Patrick Blenkarn and Milton Lim

Homebase: Vancouver

Project: culturecapital

Board games and video chat. Those are a couple of classic pandemic distractions, right there. But it was late 2017 when roommates Patrick Blenkarn and Milton Lim started brainstorming culturecapital, a strategic collectible card game that lets players navigate grant-funding and marketing strategies, inclusion initiatives and sexual-harassment scandals. So, basically, the trials of working in the arts.

The object: earn the most "community" cards, which can be achieved by collecting "grant" cards," that can be spent on "projects" which subsequently win (or lose) those coveted "community card" audiences. Developed through real-world research, a blend of public-funding data (from all government levels), mixed with accounts from hundreds of Canadian artists, the duo's produced four starter decks to date. Each edition reflects the performing arts scene in a different region: Vancouver, Edmonton-Calgary, Toronto and Montreal. (Before COVID-19 hit, Blenkarn and Lim had planned to spend the spring doing more interviews around the country.)

"It's akin to Pokemon," says Blenkarn — in case the whole "collectible card" format triggered hazy playground memories.

"We were trying to create, as accurately as possible, an illustration of how the arts economy functions," says Lim. "We were realizing that a lot of young artists, and actually even established artists, don't really have a clear grasp on how all these different abstract value propositions actually interact." 

For instance, what does it take to land a grant — some "sweet art money" from the system? The gatekeepers have priorities: What forms are they looking to support? What voices or communities? Lim sums it up: "What do I need in order to make my show appear more valuable?"

"We don't get to talk about the function of how those things work as an arts community," says Lim  — at least outside of industry panels or "whispers at the bar," he says. So when played between artists, the game can be one part satire, one part real-talk.

With the support of Art Apart, the duo livestreamed a round of culturecapital earlier this month. They've run tournaments at IRL festivals in the past (the audience buys decks to play). For the livestream, regional champs Beth Dart (Edmonton) and Dave Mott (Vancouver) faced off for $500 of culturecapital's Art Apart grant money. 

CBC Arts called Blenkarn and Lim, and asked them to unpack the project. Game on.

Is this a piece of theatre, or is it strictly a strategic card game?

Milton Lim: When we talk about culturecapital we're talking about dance, theatre and live arts. We are talking about live performance quite generally. And yes, we do. We do consider it a performance as a project. 

I come from a background where I play a lot of video games. And I think that we are always chasing the question of why certain performance communities — video game communities — are excluded from arts communities, even though a lot of sports and gaming occupy very similar spaces of spectatorship.

[Games] are live and it's a space of gathering. And [in our work] we just kind of keep going back to this idea that sports and video games have largely supplanted live performance as the place for "live-ness" and gathering.

When did you start bringing the game to performing arts festivals? Was that always the idea?

ML: Yeah, that was kind of always the idea. 

PB: We did the first fully open public tournament just this past February. People could acquire their own decks, they could find how to play and they could show up at the Fringe Theatre [in Edmonton] as part of the Chinook Series.

ML: The finals are what we call the "media spectacle finals" because they play on top of a flat screen TV with flashing lights and big sound. They're on microphones and the audience is often yelling and screaming at each other.

PB: Yeah, we're borrowing from e-sports.

And if they win, they win 500 bucks!

Real money? Do people always play for real cash?

PB: Yes, yes. It's public money that we got from the government.

So are there any strings attached to how the winner has to use it? Is it like a grant — they have to use that $500 towards a particular project?

PB: Right, well, if they're an artist, they tend to do that (laughs). But there's no restrictions on who can play. 

That's the beauty of it being a card game, but is it meant for everybody? Who did you make culturecapital for?

ML: We made it for anyone who wants to engage with knowing how arts function. And we say that quite broadly.

Anyone who pays taxes in this country does pay, in some way, into the art system. The public money that they are contributing: what is it actually doing, and how is it being used? What kind of values are being propped up?

I imagine the game's supposed to be a bit of a conversation starter. Maybe not during the finals, unless you count trash talk? But what do you want to get people talking about?

ML: Actually, what's great about the finals is that they're not timed matches. So when you're playing the game, or when people are playing the game, there's always the opportunity to pause and just talk about what's happening on the table. And some cards are a surprisingly accurate representation of what happens in real life.

PB: I guess an example would be if you played the "Not In Our Space!" card, which says, "Your Artistic Director receives sexual assault allegations."

Not to harp on Soulpepper's history, but if those cards get played, there is a moment in which reality breaks through the game.

At times, depending on the cards, it's satire. And it's institutional critique. But at other times, it can be a pretty surprising window into some of the difficulties that artists have: staying relevant, navigating the complexities of contemporary art ethics and social ethics and politics.

The strategy cards come from interviews that we've done with hundreds and hundreds of artists across the country. And we've seen that their experiences are very much shared, even though we don't sort of give [these subjects] centre stage in our normal arts discourse.

ML: In a panel discussion, a person is never going to stand up and say, "That happened to me!" They lose a lot in that action. And so for us it's a very strategic move to have [game cards of] real companies that go into a real system of how much power, how much granting money they get. And then at the same time, [the game] is detached enough that we can have a moment of levity. [A player] can get an art award at the same time they might also mess up their land acknowledgement. All of these things can actually co-exist and they do.

PB: There's an opportunity to see different perspectives and to have conversations about them. 

Are you adapting the game for the pandemic at all? Any plans for new decks? New cards?

ML: We're certainly adding to the roster of cards that we have dreamt up, and a lot of them, I should say, are quite punny. Like, for example, there's one called "You Got CERB'd." So, yeah. We're adding to the game. 

Because we use real public funding information, some of the regions we've already documented are now archives somewhat. [The decks] are almost historic. The golden era's gone by now (laughs)!

When we're on the other side of this, how do you think your approach to theatre might be different?

PB: Hmm, I don't know. We're not a company. We're just two artists who are really interested in similar things.

Rehearsing with actors is not really something that has been happening much in my life. Most of Milton and my work is shared Dropbox and shared Creative Cloud kind of stuff. So in the immediate future, I don't know if it's going to change for me too much but that's just the nature of the specific work we are working on together. But Milton, what do you think?

ML: Yeah. I think my work hasn't changed much. I feel like things have been accelerated more than they have changed or pivoted — if I was to use the pandemic language.

So, this is a tangent, but … do you ever play culturecapital yourselves?

ML: I thought about this recently (laughs)! I was telling my girlfriend: Patrick and I haven't had a serious match between each other for at least a year. We've done a lot of testing, but the last time — I want to say it was back at Boca del Lupo, that residency [in 2018]?

PB: That's like back at the very beginning! Whenever I play I get caught up in thinking, "What else can we do with this? What can we adapt?" Whereas Milton, I think you shift towards just full-on strategy and destroying your … Destroying me (laughs). 

ML: I take it very seriously.

PB: Yeah, he takes it very seriously, whereas I kind of philosophize while playing, and that's not how you win a game.

To learn more about culturecapital, visit www.culturecapital.cards.

This conversation has been edited and condensed.

CBC Arts understands that this is an incredibly difficult time for artists and arts organizations across this country. We will do our best to provide valuable information, share inspiring stories of communities rising up and make us all feel as (virtually) connected as possible as we get through this together. If there's something you think we should be talking about, let us know by emailing us at cbcarts@cbc.ca. See more of our COVID-related coverage here.