Video Transcript: The Everson Museum uses board games to promote map art exhibit
Nate Polite: Catan, Risk and the Oregon Trail were among the games loaned to the Everson Museum for the night by Tabletop Gaming. a bar in down Syracuse. The game night was put on to celebrate Joyce Kozloff’s ‘Contested Territories’ exhibit. Jonathan Edmunds, who co-owns Tabletop Gaming found it fitting that he could contribute to the celebration of Kozloff’s work.
Jonathan Edmunds: She does board game pieces in all of her mosaics, and then is very map-based with her art.
Polite: Monica Andrews, who helped organize the event, says that Kozloff’s art is more than just the map from a history textbook, it’s an illustration of peoples’ struggles.
Monica Andrews: Her body of work explores the visual language of mapping and how mapping influences our understanding of geography, history, power and control.
Polite: An exhibit displaying the history of territories lost to conflict being on display in Syracuse is no coincidence. Andrews thinks it’s important to have an open dialogue about the history of the city and country.
Andrews: Syracuse has a fraught history with redlining and is on the unceded lands of the Haudenosaunee peoples, so I think it’s really important to be able to have these types of conversations.
Polite: Open through April 5 of next year, Andrews hopes the game night gets people talking so the exhibir continues to draw in community members eager to learn about the past. From the Everson Museum, Nate Polite, NCC News.
SYRACUSE, N.Y. (NCC News) — Guests were invited into the Everson Museum to play classic board games on Nov. 13 with the goal of learning about the complicated history of Syracuse, the United States and the world as a whole through Joyce Kozloff’s ‘Contested Territories’ exhibit.
The games, including crowd-favorites like Catan, Risk and the Oregon Trail, were provided by Tabletop Gaming, a bar in Downtown Syracuse. This pairing was a perfect fit, given the nature of Kozloff’s work.
“She does board game pieces in all of her mosaics,” Jonathan Edmunds, the event coordinator for Tabletop Gaming, said.
Kozloff’s art is more than just maps from a history text book. According to Monica Andrews, who helped put on the event for the museum, Kozloff’s work is representative of historical struggles.
“[Kozloff’s] body of work explores the visual language of mapping and how mapping influences our understanding of geography, history, power and control,” Andrews said.
Having an exhibit that explores the history of territories lost to conflict on display in Syracuse is no coincidence. Andrews encourages conversations about the city’s checkered history of redlining, as well as being on unceded Haudenosaunee land. Kozloff’s work is also often critical of the United States’ foreign policies, one in particular highlights military bases in the Middle-East.
The exhibit will be open until April 5, 2026 and Andrews hopes that the game night event will bring more attention and more guests to the exhibit over time.
“I think it’s really important to be able to have these conversations,” Andrews said.