Battle of the Elements: Earth Day Workshop with Amy Cheung 

When: April 19, 2025 2-3:30pm

Where: The Block House, Governors Island, NY

This workshop is co-hosted by Spring Fellow Amy Cheung (Artist, Cultural Vitamin Solutions), Dabu Lyu and Herman Fang (NYU Game Center)

In this hands-on card-game workshop, participants will be invited to reimagine ecological conflicts and solutions through the ancient wuxing framework - utilizing and exploring the elements of earth, water, fire, metal, and wood.

Participants will design collectible cards representing actors and creatures that depend on elemental forces to survive.

They will team up in a world-making game as the host flips through real-world ecological scenarios cards—plastic-choked oceans, raging wildfires, deforestation, deep-sea mining, radioactive soil, and more. Teams will then enter timed battles to resolve—or escalate—the crisis at hand, strategizing with wuxing principles of mutual generation and restraint (e.g., water nourishes wood, fire melts metal).

Will your elemental alliance restore balance—or replicate systems of extraction?

We’ll close with a group reflection on power, agency, and interdependence in times of planetary change.

No experience necessary. Materials provided. Ages 12+