Fabio Meinardi

Muddle is a collaborative board game that merges photography, collective storytelling, and speculative play to imagine new multispecies narratives in the context of the Mediterranean climate crisis. At its core is Posidonia oceanica—a seagrass endemic to the Mediterranean Sea, and a vital yet endangered bioindicator of ecological health.

Through a system of character roles, event prompts, and photographic cards, players are invited to construct collective stories while navigating the game’s map. Each image acts as an open-ended visual cue and a meaning-making tool, meant to be activated by players through their roles and imagination. The game unfolds through interaction: between players, between humans and more-than-human entities, and between image and language.

Inspired by Donna Haraway, Muddle encourages players to “stay with the trouble,” embracing uncertainty, interdependence, and nonlinear thinking. Rather than offering resolution or escape, the game emphasizes the value of process, dialogue, and relational storytelling. It challenges anthropocentric perspective by foregrounding the voices and agencies of more than human beings, from fish to seagrass, reshaping how we relate to the fragile ecologies and times we inhabit.

Emerging from an artistic research on Posidonia Oceanica and its presence around Isola Gallinara, a small island off the italian coast, Muddle transforms play into a process of situated learning and storytelling. It opens space for rethinking ecological relations through shared acts of imagination, care, and co-authorship.