Photos from the presentations at the +Change Project Space: Nat Waller, VC+C student.

Check, mate! – A collaboration with the Kalmar chess society

As a meeting point between cultures, I would say that sports stand strong. They are activities where people come together for a main activity that does not require that people speak the same language. But, speaking of common languages, the members of the chess club had some interesting reflections around this: Multiple of the local chess players we talked to, have emphasized that chess is like a language – they say that as long as you know the rules, you have a common language. According to them the rules are the same all over the world. Playing styles might differ based on your background, and the club’s players described this as the dialects of the common language chess is. Put differently, the club did not only talk about inclusion in general, but also stressed the natural inclusion that exists within their sport, making me believe that these are issues they have thought through and truly care about. The club also talked about the inclusion that lies in the fact that chess is a sport that trains your brain and is not very physical: In chess tournaments everyone can play against everyone, gender, age or physical disabilities do not exclude you or place you in a special category. – Clara Doupovec, VC+C student

I conducted interviews with people of immigrant backgrounds at Language schools as well as shopping malls as part of the user experience design process. The goal is to get a deeper look at the targeted audience which may not be reached online or speaks Swedish or English. – Bashar Lubbad, VC+C student

From reaching out to friends and international facebook groups like ESN to get help from those who speak the languages, we received five definite translations of our slogans ‘checkmate’ or ‘let’s play’: Arabic, English, Somali, Persian and of course Swedish. We were satisfied with these as we reflected that we would rather have five slogans correctly translated than more which could have been poorly done by us and therefore not inclusive at all. – Nat Waller, VC+C student

But, speaking of common languages, the members of the chess club had some interesting reflections around this: Multiple of the local chess players we talked to, have emphasised that chess is like a language – they say that as long as you know the rules, you have a common language. – Clara Doupovec, VC+C student in conversation with the Kalmar chess society