A Bali-Mexico love affair: Loteria de Bali is born

Introducing Lotería de Bali!: The beautiful relationship between Bali and Mexico reaches back to the 1930s with Miguel Covarrubias’ iconic book, illustrations and films. In honor of that, and our own deep connection to Mexico, we have always dreamed of creating this game.⁠

⁠Combining the original graphic direction with traditional Balinese culture makes a game that’s a visual homage to two vibrant cultures.⁠ You can order it on our online shop or via Whatsapp.

⁠The game features the artwork of Kanoko Takaya, one of Bali’s most exciting artists. She originally illustrated all 52 images in a 170 x 138cm canvas. We then digitized and printed on coated paper. ⁠

⁠Lotería (the Spanish word for “lottery”) is similar to bingo, but using images on a playing board and a deck of 52 cards. Bali Lotería will also teach you a few Spanish, Indonesian, and Balinese words in between.

If you've played Loteria, you'll notice a lot of familiar names of the traditional icons and characters, like La Muerte and La Danzante pop up in Loteria de Bali. ⁠

We sat down as a team and underwent (an intense!) period of brainstorming and lobbying of which ones would make the cut and be translated for the Bali edition. The boot transformed into the flip flop, the hat into the farmer's sun protection, and on and on. ⁠

Hope you enjoy discovering all the differences and similarities!

Bali Snakes and Ladders! The launch of a new game

We've wanted to create a game for years and thanks to this pandemic downtime, we've finally done it! Maya Kerthyasa lent us her amazing line drawing skills to create a board filled with Balinese myths... Snakes and Ladders, known as Ular Tangga in Bahasa Indonesia, has its origins in second century India.

“This version of Snakes and Ladders is inspired by Balinese life and mythology. At the bottom, we have Bedawang Nala—the turtle that carries the world—accompanied by the two dragons Basuki and Anantaboga. Spiritual nirvana is represented by Mount Agung and the heavenly realm above. The other illustrations are symbols of fertility, creation, enlightenment, abundance, death, disease, disaster and knowledge. Many of these symbolic drawings are inspired by life in and around the Balinese kitchen.”

—Maya Kerthyasa

More about the history of the game:

The game was popular in ancient India by the name Moksha Patam. It was also associated with traditional Hindu philosophy contrasting karma and kama, or destiny and desire. It emphasized destiny, as opposed to games such as pachisi, which focused on life as a mixture of skill (free will) and luck. The underlying ideals of the game inspired a version introduced in Victorian England in 1892. The game has also been interpreted and used as a tool for teaching the effects of good deeds versus bad. The board was covered with symbolic images, the top featuring gods, angels, and majestic beings, while the rest of the board was covered with pictures of animals, flowers and people. The ladders represented virtues such as generosity, faith, and humility, while the snakes represented vices such as lust, anger, murder, and theft. The morality lesson of the game was that a person can attain salvation (Moksha) through doing good, whereas by doing evil one will be reborn as lower forms of life. The number of ladders was less than the number of snakes as a reminder that a path of good is much more difficult to tread than a path of sins. Presumably, reaching the last square (number 100) represented the attainment of Moksha (spiritual liberation).

-Wikipedia

The specs:

» 50cmx50cm fabric board—screen printed on 100% cotton

» 2 wooden dice

» 4 stone tokens

Shipped in a handmade paper box.