THURSDAY 7/14 ~ Ludic Liberation Lab: FAKE FAMILY
Can we unmake and remake our relational foundations?
Dear Ludic Liberators,
Have you ever wondered what it would have been like to grow up in a different family? Maybe you would want to try being the only child, or to have a twin. Wouldn't be interesting to know what it would have been like to have several moms or to grow up in a huge multigenerational family with family reunions and rituals? Or do you ever secretly wish one or more of your parents had a different influence on you because they themselves were more confident or caring or classy? (Full disclosure: these are some of my actual fantasies!)
Our families have an unparalleled impact on our relational framework: they create foundations for how we understand ourselves and the practices of sharing with and supporting others, how we perceive the responsibilities and possibilities of adulting, ambition, and aging. In turn, family experiences also foreclose some possibilities of how we imagine being in the world with other people. And while families are dynamic and change over time, it feels impossible to alter our actual historical family experiences — it feels taboo to even dream about! Sure, you can process and integrate your family history over years in therapy, but you can't just imagine you had a totally different past.
Well, we playful chaos creators at the Ludic Liberation Lab invite you to play with the taboo topic FAMILY in the spirit of becoming-with (sympoiesis) and destroying-with (symolethros). Building on the structure Indigo Esmonde's game "VERSIONS" we experimented with in June (Lab Report forthcoming after we collect some more data), we will support one another to feel into new versions of family structures, memories, and experiences, and see if it allows us to liberate any possibilities for our current selves. Please note we are not family therapists and the lab is not designed to hold and heal family trauma, but we hope you will feel safe bringing in some serious and silly family fantasies for us to try the game dynamics on.
This lab is FREE but registration is required! You can support our research by becoming a paid subscriber to the Lab Report. Thank you to all existing subscribers!
JOIN US TO PLAY WITH FAKE FAMILY!
🗓 THURSDAY July 14, 2022 (a week later than usual but better late than never!)
⏰ 6-7:30pm EDT
📍 Zoom
🎟 FREE but registration required!