BOOTBALL

Tallinn, Estonia 2014

We found a YouTube video of an eight year old boy reading the rules of his new sport, and played it for him on Estonian Television.

This boy, Ian Luciano, had invented a complicated and delightfully ridiculous new sport, Bootball, complete with field diagrams, position charts, and even an organizational model, with the National Bootball League at the top of an extensive Bootball league hierarchy. Since this game requires sixteen people, and it seemed Ian only had one brother, the only thing he could not do was actually play Bootball.

That is where we decided to step in. We could play test the sport, film it, and report back to this young sport inventor. We gathered the necessary equipment, basically a lot of balls, and headed to Burlington VT for a festival where we would play the game. Alas rain forced a cancellation, which ultimately turned into a blessing. The next week I went to Estonia to do an education project. During the project we were contacted by Estonian TV, who wanted to make a short segment on my residency. This would be the perfect time to play the game, on Estonian TV! We visited a local school that was participating in the museum project and quickly taught them Bootball right before the camera crew arrived. The young Estonians picked up the game with ease, and the filming went smoothly. As soon as the clip came online, we posted it in the comments of Ian’s original video- where he was utterly shocked to see children halfway across the world playing his game. He even got written up in his local paper for his inspiring of Estonian school children to play Bootball. We also organized a performance of Bootball at KuMu as the culmination of the residency: the perfect ending to a great project. We look forward to playing Bootball again, and we look forward to collaborating with Ian on future new sports!