Global Gincana was an educational project on cultural exchange. High school students in Amsterdam and São Paulo (Brasil) exchanged their thoughts and experiences on different cultural themes by playing new types of urban games.
The overall idea behind Global Gincana was that teams at two different locations or countries across the world connect with and compete against each other in a mobile urban game that is based on the Brasilian community game Gincana.
Gincana is a traditional Brazilian collective game, in which kids are divided into groups that compete against each other, usually in an open setting. Participants are challenged to undertake different tasks, which can involve finding specific objects or information, and also sporting, cultural and artistic skills, in order to collect points.
The objective
Global Gincana searched for ways to combine these traditional Brasilian Gincana game principles with location-aware (GPS) mobile technology to create a new format of discovering cultural expression in urban environments.
The ultimate goal was to stimulate thinking about transformation of cultural phenomena through ‘culture mash-up’. With the game, students explored how cultural themes such as music & dance, language, fashion, habits & rituals, design and art were impacted by the fact that Brasil and the Netherlands are multi-ethnic societies. By sharing experiences through mobile media and a webbased platform, students learn from each other’s culture and look at their own in new ways.
The process
The project kicked-off with a visit from Waag Society to MobileFest from January 18 – 25 2009. A group of students, teachers and local artists played a pilot gincana game around Paulista Avenue and worked out Gincana themes and tasks in a workshop. The actual project took place later in Septemer ’09, connecting a class in Sao Paulo and in Amsterdam for a month.
Global Gincana was a collaboration between Waag Society, 7scenes and Mobilefest. Please visit the projectsite for results and more information.