2026/7: The CCAC Plays*
What occurs when we take 'play'* seriously?

Contemplating the concepts of play* and playing in the visual arts asks us to consider belief and enjoyment; the voluntary and the narrative; and pedagogy and earnestness.

Hans-Georg Gadamer defines play*, in the sphere of artistic production, to be the very mode of being of a work of art, shifting from an object-based framework to one set up by situations, faiths, and subjectivities. The player and the played, equally necessary to the activation of play*, function from distinct and at times oppositional points of knowledge and desire.

Play* is perhaps not a term immediately associated with the college environment; but the dimensions of play* revealed through engagement with this theme are certainly resonant in our community and everyday living. To belong to an institution, after all, is to belong to a network of mutual faith, and embrace its idiosyncrasies.

This theme invites those working and studying in Christ's College to engage with the fun, the seriousness and the unseriousness of ‘Play’,* and the very nature of the serious itself.

Michaelmas 2026 Programme: TBC