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One Belt. Many Roads
This is not a game you can win. There are no points, no single paths forward. One Belt. Many Roads invites you into a field of play shaped by speculation, collaboration, and imagination. You are entering a world built from real infrastructures and uneven power relations, traced across eight regions connected by China’s New Silk Road initiative. As you move through the cards, you will encounter stories that span continents yet press deeply into local ground—reshaping landscapes, economies, and lives. Look at the hand-crafted clay map, while reading a card. Silently or to the person next to you. The landscape does not represent the world as data or diagram, but as a mutable terrain—compressed, distorted, and re-scaled. Distance collapses. Connections become tactile. Listen, question, and reimagine. Notice asymmetries. Follow flows of capital, labor, and resources—and the frictions they produce. Consider how planetary dependencies and neocolonial logics shape the paths available to you. What if connectivity were built on reciprocity rather than extraction? What if infrastructures cared for the worlds they pass through? As you play, you are invited to imagine alternative routes—other roads that could be made. The game remains unfinished. Its future depends, in part, on how you choose to move through it. Begin anywhere. The Belt and Road Initiative /BRI is a massive plan for a global network of infrastructure, including ports, roads, railways, and telecommunications networks, intended to connect China with the rest of the world. It is one of the largest infrastructure investment projects in history, involving over 150 countries and international organizations, accounting for a significant portion of the world's population and global GDP. China provides large loans for projects that may be economically unviable, leaving some developing countries with unsustainable debt. While evidence for deliberate “debt-trap diplomacy” is debated, opaque loan terms and high levels of hidden debt can increase economic vulnerability and expand China’s political influence. A majority of BRI energy investments have historically promoted fossil fuels, particularly coal power plants, which are projected to significantly increase global carbon emissions and hinder climate goals. Projects have been associated with the physical displacement of local populations, inadequate compensation, and labor rights violations, with Chinese firms often ill-equipped to manage civil society concerns or local political dynamics. The development of dual-use (commercial and military) ports, such as in Gwadar, Pakistan, and Djibouti, raises concerns about China's growing military footprint. (Maren Richter) 
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One Belt. Many Roads
in: A few Rules for Predicting the Future Spazju Kreattiv, Valletta, Malta Opening: March 13, 2026, 7 pm Exhibition: March 13–May 10, 2026 Curated by Maren Richter A Few Rules for Predicting the Future takes its title from a 2000 essay by Afrofuturist Sci-Fi writer Octavia E. Butler, in which she calls for a grounded futurity shaped by interdependence, transformation, and imagination. One Belt. Many Roads is a collective project by: Grammar of Urgencies, Agung Kurniawan, Almagul Menlibayeva, Behzad Khosravi Noori, Berhanu Ashagrie Deribew, Hatem Bourial, transparadiso (Paul Rajakovics/ Barbara Holub), Yara Mekawei and Klaus Schafler This show is part of the longer term project OBMR; For infos see here. | ||