The Fortitude Game (1996–2005)

The Fortitude Game blended the mechanics of children’s games with rituals and objects of traditional sports to produce a highly structured yet absurd spectacle designed to be played in public parks.

Players raced to collect colour-coded uniforms and antique sporting gear while shifting between roles of striking, receiving strikes, and controlling a gramophone, whose music set the game’s tempo. Each position carried its own mix of advantage, vulnerability, and moral compromise. Physical endurance collided with ethical decision-making as alliances formed and fractured, revealing the deeper play: a critique of masculine codes, class hierarchies, and the implicit violence of organised sport. The fortitude game was a playful but pointed study of how choice, permission, and compliance operate within rule based systems of control.

History

First Match - University College London, 1996

London inner city parks series, 1996–97

Dorset Fields series (Lords Cricket Ground), Marylebone, 1997

Marseilles en Juin, Galerie Le ‘(OL)’, France, 1998

Victoria Gardens series, Kew, Melbourne, 2005

The Museum of Fortitude, Conical Gallery, Melbourne, 2005