Developed for an exhibition at Michael Lett Gallery in New Zealand (2017) and expanded across various venues since, The Founder’s Paradox uses games as a framework to reflect on competing visions of the future as the neoliberal status quo is questioned from both ends of the political spectrum.

Drawing on the popularity of board games, and resonant with game theory’s influence on the technology sector, The Founder’s Paradox explores competing utopian visions, remapped as board games with narratives from radical and influential texts: from libertarian super-investor Peter Thiel’s Zero to One on the one hand, to Oxford-based writer Max Harris’s indictment of neoliberalism, The New Zealand Project, on the other. The Sovereign Individual worldview is examined through “world-building” fantasy games, while more collectivist ideas like Harris’s are put into play via games that involve physical dexterity and cooperation. A riff on The Game of Life bridges the two, offering the choice between collective action and individual sovereignty at every fork.