#  Fair Play  

 



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On Display at the Crossings Gallery October 31-December 12

**What if you could transform a popular game** into something that mirrors how individuals in society interact with each other? Could you discover space to reflect? Would it deepen your ability to see, be, and accept yourself? Using unconventional paddles, balls, tables and nets, local fabricator Dyllan Nguyen invites gallery visitors to explore how fun helps them learn, reduce stress, and relate to themselves and others. In this hands-on exhibition, visitors will experiment, create new games, imagine their own equipment and...play!



 

##  Play By Play: Behind-the-Scenes with Dyllan Nguyen 

   ![art-piece-paddle](/sites/g/files/omnuum12051/files/styles/hwp_1_1__360x360_scale/public/hep/files/fair_play_-edges.jpg?itok=DKxQa7Z0) 

 

## **Every Thursday evening November 7– 21\* at 5:30p.m.**

Why are there blades embedded in that? What if the parts were made of ice and melted as you played? What if the surface of the table had a thin layer of jelly on it? Join fabricator Dyllan Nguyen for a behind-the-scenes look at his new interactive exhibition. Learn about his creative process, ask questions, chat about the ideas that influence his work and mess around with the art objects. This event is a casual all-ages gathering. No previous experience with table tennis or contemporary art discourse is needed.

#### [Learn More & RSVP ](https://www.eventbrite.com/e/play-by-play-behind-the-scenes-with-dyllan-nguyen-tickets-1035029650547?aff=oddtdtcreator)  


*\*November 7 includes an opening reception.*



 

##  Meet the Artist 

   ![headshot-of-artist](/sites/g/files/omnuum12051/files/styles/hwp_1_1__360x360_scale/public/hep/files/dyllan_nguyen_3_1.jpg?itok=engAR0Ez) 

 

photo credit: Mel TaingDyllan Nguyen (any/all pronouns) is a human who is queer, Vietnamese-American, an artist, and educator based in Boston whose work exists at the intersection of art, design, education, and advocacy. Alongside partner and frequent collaborator Brooke Scibelli, he is co-founder of Non Issue Studio, creating custom objects and workshops to foster creativity and access to art for all ages. They maintain studios in Allston, Jamaica Plain, and Needham for their various creative practices. Dyllan’s work has been exhibited widely in the Boston area, throughout the United States and abroad. He is a current participant in the Harvard EdPortal’s Artist Pipeline Program and was a summer 2024 artist in residence at Harvard’s ArtLab. Dyllan’s teaching practice has included work at several institutions in eastern Massachusetts, a teaching artist residency at the Institute of Contemporary Art (Boston), and engagements with community based organizations and craft schools. He currently teaches sculpture and design classes at Olin College of Engineering and offers workshops at the Eliot School of Fine and Applied Arts. He holds degrees from Massachusetts College of Art and Design and the University of Plymouth, and satisfies his curiosity through continuously seeking opportunities to learn.

**@nonissuestudio**



 

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 photo credit: Malakhai Pearson



   

 

  ![art-process-in-workshop-paddles](/sites/g/files/omnuum12051/files/hep/files/dyllan-w-paddles-pearson.jpg)

 



 

  

 

 

 

 



###    WHAT MATERIALS ARE IN THE EXHIBIT?  expand\_more  

 

 ***Paddles made from wood, foam, rug tufting, glass, crochet, thumbtacks; nets made from chain link, bricks and rope.***



 

 

 



###    HOW DO I FIND INSPIRATION?  expand\_more  

 

I find developing ideas in the studio is sometimes, but rarely, an image that comes to mind and then a clear process from idea to finished piece. More often, this is some inspiration - a what if… or a why not… that become a few words in a notes app, on a sticky, or the margins of a sketchbook and maybe a conversation with my partner and frequent collaborator, Brooke. Sometimes the next steps come quickly, others might be weeks, months, years. Flipping through the pages or scrolling while seeking a link - I’m sure I saved - one of these phrases catches my attention, seeding a diagram, a model, then maybe some notes about material, scale, color, function, texture…

 

 

 



###    WHAT IS THE ROLE OF EXPERIMENTATION?  expand\_more  

 

 Making is a way that I play with and explore the world around me. It’s a space where I can ask or answer questions, effect my physical and intellectual world, and follow curiosities. When I have the opportunity for un/less-structured studio time (especially while glue sets or paint dries), a new tool or process to wrap my hands around, or the occasional residency period I work on realizing usable paddles from the diagrams. I seek ways to test them out– local outdoor tables, between floor and wall, the occasional cookout, lobbing balls down our hallway for our beloved cat, Patina, to chase… I ask What did I expect this to actually be like? What have I learned from doing it?

I often find myself drafting new suggestions for ways to engage this work, ways to explore the structure of what we do. Is it fair to play with paddles of different scales or on tables where each side has a different surface area? Can I create greater equity in this game (or the world) through changing variables? More recently as I read more about the role of play in human lives and culture, I find myself thinking a lot about not wanting to box play or the edges of this work in too tightly. Constraint invites creativity but too much or too little can stifle it.

 

 

 



###    HOW DO TEACHING AND COMMUNITY IMPACT MY PRACTICE?  expand\_more  

 

Teaching has been an integral part of my career and studio practice for as long as I have had that language to use. Sharing ideas with and guiding others through spaces where they can grow themselves and their capacity for understanding shaping the world around them is an act of deep care, a way to build community, and offers continuous lessons in the practice of optimism. Inviting others into this work through play, shown to reduce stress and encourage openness, is another way that I approach caring for those around me, seeking to build a world that is more understanding.

 

 

 



 

 

 

 

##  Artist Statement 

 **It’s All Made Up.**

 Fair Play has followed a circuitous path. In 2015 I spent a couple of days each week teaching public school students in grades K-8. At the beginning of that year Boston faced six consecutive storms. Between this record snowfall and the frequency of Monday holidays I had a few classes of early elementary students that I didn’t see for nearly two months. The upcoming class rotation meant we suddenly had far fewer weeks to spend together and excess budget from projects we wouldn’t get to do. This was both a shame and an opportunity. I decided we’d use the woodworking skills we had been building to create a project together that would have an immediate function - table tennis paddles. I have mostly fond memories of afterschool programs and 9th grade gym classes spent volleying celluloid balls, but limited experience playing in any more serious context. Attempting to use my non-dominant hand, using a paddle in each hand, rotating about the table instead of playing from a stationary location - I found I was more interested in riffing on organized games than engaging in the pursuit of excellence within a narrow set of rules. I have a great deal of respect for those who have this dedication and drive for a single pursuit, it is just not how I usually function.



 



###    Read more about Nguyen's process  expand\_more  

 

 I made samples, planned our lessons, and prepped our stock. We spent two class periods making our parts– paddles and retractable nets– followed by a class period we would spend playing/testing our new creations. Our limited tool kit and developing dexterity posed some challenges for our young craftspeople. At times we felt great disappointment about how fair our curves were cut or how well shaped or smooth our handles were and spent a portion of our time together exploring these differences in what we had created, what our expectations were. We had conversations about adaptation, how to incorporate, accentuate, and even celebrate the features that made each paddle different. Though our paddles had some variation, we had a great deal of fun playing across our work tables on that last day of class just the same.

 TEDRadioHour released an episode called Press Play in March of 2015, right around when I was teaching the first versions of the paddle-making project. A couple of months later (a guess related to the early occurrences of notes and sketches) I came across the episode and was introduced to the idea of building empathy through play (italicized here because I use this phrase often, but certainly did not originate it and am struggling to find the source of this concept. Please contact me if you find it.) My interests in the concept of distraction, creativity, and flow states intersect with play. Other work I have done has touched on play and related topics, and I often describe working in the studio or problem solving in the shop as a version of play (depending on deadlines or other time demands).

 In preparation for each coming year I try to update my lesson documentation. While thinking about my goals for the paddle making lesson I kept coming back to how particularly special the conversations I had with my first and second graders felt. Many of our classroom projects focused on the acquisition of technical skills like learning to measure and mark, using different tools safely/effectively, planning and executing a process as well as creative practices like story telling with our creations and engaging in imaginative play to explore how an object might have been designed. I returned to the episode and looked up the paper referenced ( Social Stress Elicits Emotional Contagion of Pain in Mouse and Human Strangers by L. J. Martin, G. Hathaway, D. J. Levitin, J. S. Mogil) and other related articles. Why don’t we expand the way we are engaging with play in this project? I wondered. I began forming new goals, bringing prompts to consider the object as it is and imagine more ways of being (playing with the form) followed by reflection on the experience to the center of the project. This led to doodles of absurd paddles (soft materials; melting; breakable; .5x, 2x, 3x, 6x scaling across one or more axes…) filling the edges of notes and pages in sketchbooks spanning years.

 Early in this practice, I considered the different iterations and what I felt the collection might mean. I see each element as both being and representing difference but have always intentionally avoided creating 1:1 relationships between any characteristic or feature and any particular identity. We each experience the many parts of ourselves in such deeply personal and individualized ways and I have always wanted the way one might relate to any of these pieces to be as expansive as possible. And, of course, it would be wildly inappropriate to create analogies using identities I don’t inhabit, or to try to make broad statements about any I do.

 Since those early lessons I have offered similar workshops to people of a much wider range of ages, each iteration enriching how I think about teaching, making objects, and engaging in craft practices. New questions arise with each opportunity to share this work in a learning environment informing future versions, and also how I reflect on earlier ones. This project, perhaps more than any other in my portfolio, demonstrates the energy interwoven (entwinded?) through both. Through the many iterations of this work- creating advantages or deficits through changing the form, questioning expectations of what it means for something to function, the greatest lesson has been that it’s all made up so while we can’t change everything, we can play with and change many things and perhaps become more understanding along the way.