SIDELINED: Redefining Winners and Losers in Sports Design
Gabriel Fontana's design-driven project prioritizes collaboration over competition.
1The Impact of Design on Sports
Gabriel Fontana emphasizes that sports are a designed system. Stadiums, jerseys, scoreboards, and rules all result from conscious design decisions. Yet these elements rarely receive the critical scrutiny we apply to architecture or public spaces. Fontana's SIDELINED exhibition at Rotterdam's Nieuwe Instituut interrogates these design choices to reveal how sports shape social interactions. The project challenges our passive acceptance of sporting conventions.
2Three Revolutionary Games
SIDELINED presents three alternative team sports: Multiform, Anonymous Allyship, and Fluid Field. These games eliminate fixed teams, transform jerseys during play, and constantly reshape playing fields. Fontana's approach shifts focus from competition to cooperation and negotiation. Multiform, with its three-sided playing field and transformable uniforms, particularly颠覆 traditional sports dynamics. The games demonstrate how rule modifications can create entirely new social dynamics.
3The Rotterdam Sports Bar Experience
The Rotterdam iteration transforms the museum's rooftop into a public sports bar. Visitors encounter a foosball table without fixed teams and a newspaper highlighting local queer sports initiatives. Until January 2027, participatory workshops and games allow visitors to actively reshape the installation. This living exhibition evolves through public engagement, showcasing the power of participatory design. The space becomes a laboratory for reimagining sports culture.
4Architecture and Sports
Fontana treats sports venues as architectural systems. The Anonymous Allyship game exhibited at Venice's Stadio Pier Luigi Penzo questions traditional stadium design. Players navigate shifting alliances without visual team identifiers. This experience offers fresh perspectives on how architecture directs social interaction. The project reveals how spatial design influences not just gameplay but interpersonal relationships within sporting contexts.
5Community Participation
During Logroño's Concéntrico Festival, local students redesigned sports fields and invented new rules. Workshops in Parque Gallarza enabled collective design processes. These activities proved sports can be tools for community building rather than just spectator entertainment. The Spanish iteration demonstrated how participatory design can democratize sports infrastructure. Such approaches make sports more inclusive and responsive to local needs.
6Curatorial Approach
Curator Amanda Pinatih views sports bars as sites of social production and identity formation. However, she notes they can also be exclusionary. SIDELINED examines how these spaces foster both belonging and marginalization. This inquiry brings new perspectives to public space design. The project uses sports culture as a lens to examine broader societal dynamics. Pinatih's curation ensures the exhibition remains grounded in real-world social issues.
7Rewarding Different Values
SIDELINED's trophy cabinet rejects traditional victory culture. Instead, it rewards collaboration, care, and improvisation skills. This radical approach shows sports can develop social and emotional competencies alongside physical abilities. The project treats queer methodology as practice rather than identity. By celebrating alternative achievements, it expands our understanding of what sports can accomplish.
8The Future of Sports
SIDELINED raises crucial questions about sports' future: Who do sports spaces include or exclude? How might alternative rules create different outcomes? Fontana's work proves sports can be platforms for social change, not just entertainment. Running until 2027, this experiment continues pushing participatory design boundaries. The project invites us to reconsider sports' potential as tools for building more inclusive communities.