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The Joyful Institute for Adequate Studies
This institute is for adults who are done pretending they know what they're doing.
Playfulness tends to get squeezed into the icebreaker slot — useful for five minutes, then set aside for the serious work. The Joyful Institute for Adequate Studies does something different. We use play as a reflective, generative practice: expanding that space to explore trust, doubt, power, collaboration, consent, and joy through unwinnable games — an emergent form where none of those things can be forced, but all of them tend to show up.
We start in the body, in play, in the small brave act of being genuinely present with another person without needing to win. Trust is a muscle. Joy is not a luxury. And adequacy — the radical decision to show up just as you are right now — might be one of the most political acts available to us.
This is where we practise together.
More here.
Approach +
Unwinnable games are inherently levelling. They create the conditions to notice: who takes up space, who holds back, how power moves in a room when the usual rules are suspended. Our practice is rooted in that ambiguity — using games as containers, as exercises in paying attention, as invitations to engage with what actually comes up. We take seriously who gets to play, who gets to rest, and who has historically been told their presence is not enough. Those aren't add-ons to the work. They are the work.
Clients +
Alongside working with individuals, we have designed and facilitated workshops and experiences for a range of brands and companies:
