Part 4 | Mission Accomplished

The game is rigged, part 4

The premiere night marked the beginning of what would become one of the most fulfilling weeks of our lives.

We met so many wonderful people, received an overwhelming amount of love, and had conversations that we'll probably remember for a very long time. The exhibition was almost never empty throughout the week, and every day brought new reactions we hadn't expected.

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Some of our favourites:

We had quite a few people become emotional to the point of tears. We shared hugs, stories and kind words. As women ourselves, we're no strangers to the realities of inequality and prejudice, so seeing the work resonate so deeply with others became a strangely cathartic experience for us too.

One of our youngest visitors, a boy who couldn't have been older than five, kept asking:

"Why is the girl always losing?"

In his mind, it was the same girl in every game, facing a different challenge each time. We had never thought about it that way, but somehow his interpretation made perfect sense.

Another visitor, a little girl who was probably around eight, watched the first game and became visibly upset by the unfair ending. She wanted to leave immediately. Her parents convinced her to stay, only for the second game to end in exactly the same way. She jumped up, frustrated, and walked out.

It was a bittersweet moment. Of course we wanted people to experience the entire installation, but at the same time we couldn't help feeling that she had understood it perfectly. She wasn't frustrated because she had lost but because the game was unfair and we want especially young girls to be angry about this and not accept it.

We also received incredibly generous feedback from visitors of all ages, as well as from friends, colleagues and fellow creatives who understood just how much work had gone into bringing the exhibition to life. Those conversations meant the world to us.

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And just like that, the most fulfilling week of our lives came to an end.

Almost two months later, we're still processing it all.

Lea and Jolin on installation day, completely unaware of how special the next seven days would become.

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We know it's impossible to recreate the feeling of standing inside the installation on a laptop or phone screen, but if you're curious, you can still watch the full sequence here.