The exhibition examines the past, present and future of Scrabble of Scrabble through different immersive experiences in each giant 3D Scrabble tile.
What innovation Scrabble can look forward to in the next 70 years? The pop-up introduces a specially-designed one-off, futuristic Space Edition Scrabble, made from meteoritic rock and magnetic tiles to defy gravity. the space board itself contains 5grams of meteorite, with a total weight of 180g. With the use of magnetic materials inserted in to the board, it will be displayed in the experience “floating” as it would in anti-gravity space.
At the International Space Station, astronauts are encouraged to practice little habits and activities that remind them of home. Psychologists recognise such behaviour as being fundamental to maintaining an astronaut’s mental health and peace of mind. Playing Scrabble is one of the most popular of these spacetime activities, but there’s just one problem: no gravity.
“Our Scrabble board had Velcro on the back, as did each alphabet piece. The beauty of a spaceship is that if you lose a piece you only have to wait until it turns up in the filter.” CHRIS HADFIELD, ASTRONAUT.
To counter the gravity problem, we created the Scrabble Space Edition, specially designed to be played in orbit. With magnetic tiles fashioned from meteorite rock, this board allows astronauts to play their favourite game no matter where they are in the galaxy!
A transparent cubed tile will also show the tense World Scrabble Championship Finale live at 12pm as the two best players in the world go head to head to lay the highest score and take the trophy. Fans will also get the opportunity to hone their skills by facing off against one of the world’s greatest players; a sure way to win is by landing the highest possible score of 1,782 achieved by adding tiles to form the word oxyphenbutazone across three triple-word scores!
Walk through seven huge Scrabble cubed tiles to discover a visual history of Scrabble and it’s fun and irreverent use in pop culture through films, TV and by celebrity fans. Scrabble celebrates how new additions to the English language lexicon make for surprising official Scrabble play words including SELFIE and FITSPIRATION, while you can vote for which word you want to see included in the next Scrabble dictionary.
The pop-up is just one piece on the board of 70th celebrations, that include a cultural film that brings together the UK’s brightest and most interesting young wordsmiths – rappers, poets and writers – to explore the evolution of language and words through the lens of Scrabble.
