In Whirlpools and Lifebelts (2016), an original board game by Cally Trench, the aim is to bring your family of five people from their dangerous Homeland to the Island of Safety. All players are in play simultaneously, and the game is punctuated by sound as players recite appropriate words when a member of their family drowns or reaches safety. The border shuts when seven people have reached the Island of Safety.

The game is essentially a race, but the recitations by the other players make you aware of their loses and successes. Whatever your intellectual position on migration, you will feel an intense desire to get your family to the Island of Safety; the game bypasses the intellect and engages you emotionally. I cannot remember an occasion on which all five members of a family were saved; you might consider that you have won if you have saved more of your family than the other players - but at what cost?

Cally Trench: I believe that board games are a way for people to engage with what distresses us. In general, players willingly suspend disbelief and play in earnest; board games seem to bypass the intellect and engage people directly at an emotional level. My board games highlight moral and ethical problems while not suggesting solutions.

Whirlpools and Lifebelts was first played at Homunculus, an exhibition in response to the humanitarian crisis caused by mass migration, curated by Rekha Sameer at Asylum, London, on 17th January 2016.