Between 2020-2021, FACT's programme explored The Living Planet, through which Non-Humans of Liverpool and it's creators joined the conversation about climate change and its impact on our environment. The environment is everything around us, encompassing all the conditions in which a person, animal, plant or ecosystem lives and operates. And yet only a few people have the power to 'manage it'. So how can we take individual and collective responsibility for the other species that share our planet with us? How does science, technology and art inform climate justice? How do we resolve conflicts between human and non-human laws and the use of space or environmental resources?

Learning Non-Human gave Jack Tan, collaborators and FACT the opportunity to talk about intergenerational climate justice and how future human and non-human people will be affected by our current actions. It was an opportunity to enter into a learning process: a way to learn how to learn about non-humans.

FACT was inspired by Jack Tan’s ability to create playful spaces for participants to question how non-humans are considered, or not, in the plans and laws we make. We were interested to explore how his practice could create space for intergenerational learning online.

This digital tool/game was co-created through a series of in-depth artist-led workshops, delivered on Zoom, throughout the Coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic. Participants engaged in world-building and character development, role-playing as the non-humans in Liverpool. They created and tested a game that rewards players for solving problems and creating policy ideas from the point of view of non-humans.

To play Non-Humans of Liverpool, you first select a 'folk' to join. Your folk is the team that you play in during a tournament. You win points for your folk by observing or imagining problems that members of your folk may encounter in the city, and then writing incident reports in the game map which then appear as markers. The more convincing your reports and the more reports you write, the more points you will earn for our folk in the tournament. You can place your marker wherever an incident has happened by tapping on the map. The game can be played citywide, within one street or even in and around one building.

The more convincing your reports and the more reports you write, the more points you will earn for our folk in the tournament. You can place your marker wherever an incident has happened by tapping on the map. The game can be played citywide, within one street or even in and around one building. A tournament lasts any length of time depending on who is running the game. It culminates in an 'All Folk Assembly' where each folk will present their most convincing incident report for a panel of judges to deliberate.

The panel is usually made up of decision-makers with real influence and the ability to find some solutions to the problems raised. The judges can be city councillors, land developers, senior staff, trustees or key stakeholders. Their job is to listen to the problems raised and then to debate on how they would solve the problems presented. The panel will award extra points to the folk who have presented the most workable incident reports or the ones that capture the panel’s imagination. The folk with the most cumulative points at the end of the All Folk Assembly will be declared the winner of the tournament!