Level playing field

Level playing field is an artwork developed by Cross and commissioned by Scape Public Art Christchurch in 2013. Level Playing Field was a combination of artwork and new sport invented specifically for Christchurch. It offered a participatory and sculptural meditation on how reactive fear and instability might be re-performed through considered transformatory experiences. Where unstable ground has been a constant reality for the people of Christchurch who have been forced into negotiating a certain psychological mindset of reactive fear, Level Playing Field recast the reality of a moving/shifting surface as something pleasurable to be negotiated and overcome via the negotiation of an inflatable sporting field. The research outlined how socially engaged modes of performance might provoke threshold moments in the face of a city experiencing accelerated transition,It consisted of a large inflatable structure designed to play an entirely new sport. The work was subsequently shown in France as part of the L’Entorse festival in 2016.