Architect Dana Bodnárová started her six months residency at U. S. Steel Košice in October last year. She came to get to know our plant thanks to the Art in Business project, which is supervised by the Creative Industry Košice non-governmental organization and is intended for young talented artists. There were two more art residencies running at the same time, one at Košice Airport and the other at T-Systems company. The goal of this unusual project was to enable the artists to create something within the real working environment of well-known companies. The participants were supposed to create something in any art form.
The Art in Business residency of the young architect resulted in the board game called “Hutník Fero”, in translation Frank the Steelmaker. “During my half-year stay at U. S. Steel Košice I worked with various ideas, and in the end I chose the board game project. Its goal is to have fun and learn something new. The name Frank the Steelmaker, who is at the same time the main character of this game and explains (together with his girlfriend Zlatka) the steel production flow and steelworks life to the players, was thought up by my friends Slavomír and Stanislav Stankovičovci,” says Dana about her creation. She gained a lot of ideas for this game from our firefighters, and colleagues from the Mechanics shop also helped when they pressed the board game edges so it does not cut anybody. The important fact is that the whole game is made out of our galvanized sheet.
And what is Frank the Steelmaker about? The game is reminiscent of the popular Monopoly. There are printed areas on the board that copy the metallurgical processes in steelmaking. You can find there the iron-ore mine, blast furnace, steel-shop, rolling-mill, and the spiral-welded pipes and radiators plant. In addition there are some fields marked History, Random or Bonus, which are related to the playing cards. These cards enrich the game, they make it more fun to play, and players even get to know some facts from the history of the Košice plant and even from the daily life of Fero and Zlatka.
The players use a steel die to move their magnetic figures. They can purchase various divisions and metallurgical shops. In this way you can become the owner of the scrap yard, blast furnace, mine, or steel-shop. Then the others who visit your space have to pay you rent. The money is represented by slabs in this case. At the beginning of the game everybody gets the certain number of slabs. The winner is the one who has the highest number of slabs at the end. The game “Hutník Fero” is suitable for 2 to 5 players.
Dana Bodnárová manufactured 12 sets of this game. One was given to our firefighters, one to the Mechanics shop, the third has travelled to Medzev, and one is kept at the Public Affairs department. The creator is satisfied and she is glad she could be a part of our company. “The residency enriched me, and I learned a lot here. Kristína Záthureczká from Public Affairs accompanied me during my stay and thanks to her and other employees I got to know U. S. Steel Košice and I received a lot of information that has been implemented into my game. I would like to thank everybody who spent some time with me and who helped me,” says Dana Bodnárová at the end of her stay.
