Series “Games of the World”: Hanafuda | installation space “Between us”

Japanese Playing Cards - Meet Hanafuda in the “Games of the World” series!

We all associate jacks, ladies and kings, symbols of spades or trefoil — what if the cards instead of the familiar signs appeared... trees, flowers and animals? This is what the Japanese playing cards — Hanafuda — used in many different games in Japan look like. Their origins date back to the 16th century, and the history was extremely turbulent.

Why did the shogunate ban many variations of Hanafuda for hundreds of years? In which games can you use these characteristic cards? And what does the Japanese mafia have to do with them?

You will learn all this during the next meeting of the series “Games of the World”, during which we will get acquainted with the gameplay from different corners of the globe. Each lecture begins with an introduction to the rules, then we briefly discuss the origin of the game and share a lot of interesting facts. “World Games” is the perfect opportunity to spend time together, learn about cultures and discover how different games have brought people together for centuries!