Once unthinkable, visitors to museums are now being encouraged to touch objects, climb exhibits, and move in ways not traditionally associated with cultural institutions. Museums are encouraging experimentation and programming activities which actively support participation and involvement, and more fundamentally, visitors are being invited to play.

Play is intrinsically personal and takes many shapes and forms: playing can shift from spontaneous, unstructured activities to games, sports, or hobbies. Put simply, play is an activity which immerses you in the moment and brings you joy or pleasure.[1] Think of Carsten Holler’s slides (Test Site), or Martin Creed’s balloons (Work No. 3868, Half the air in a given space), both of which have had multiple museum iterations, their success punctuated by the child-like joy they infused into spaces. Scientists and health professionals have long upheld that play has a positive impact on mental and emotional well-being, and facilitates learning and deeper engagement. It brings people together, reduces stress and enhances emotional resilience.

This summer, we’re seeing this focus at two prominent museums: MoMA PS1 in New York opened Yto Barrada’s Le Grand Soir, encouraging visitors to climb, play, and interact on colourful block structures in an otherwise empty corridor, utilising the negative space for positive intervention. While the audience can enjoy the installation without knowing anything about it, Barrada’s blocks hold clues as to their deeper meaning. Similarly, The Serpentine Gallery in London mirrored its much-acclaimed Summer Pavilion (designed by celebrated architect Marina Tabassum in 2025) with a Pavilion of Play designed by Sir Peter Cook in collaboration with Lego, complete with a slide for both adults and children. Building on the interactive nature of 2024’s pavilion, designed by Minsuk Cho, which included a neon orange climbing frame, the gallery has fully embraced the idea that play is not only part of its core offering, but also part of its responsibility to its visitors.

So why do serious institutions need to take play seriously?

Beyond just attracting crowds, cultural organisations are discovering that by encouraging play, their audiences more deeply engage with their content and their programmes, spend more time in their exhibits, and increase their learning opportunities. Most importantly, cultural organisations see themselves filling a deep societal need which was exacerbated by COVID-19 and its aftermath – museums can be places of gathering; safe and accessible locations to socialise and connect in person, away from smartphones and the constant barrage of screens.[2] Thoughtfully designed experiences can unlock social connectivity across groups and create situations that allow us to interact with one another, perhaps building community and reducing isolation along the way.[3] The museum sector recognises that it has a duty and an opportunity to be places of post-COVID healing, and this opportunity offers them the chance to demonstrate that they are more than a collection of objects behind glass cases. They have become places of encounter, respite and joy.

The Evolving Trend

Beyond sophisticated learning and family engagement programmes and purpose-built children’s museums – AEA’s latest Cultural Infrastructure Index noted a global growth in museums built for children, with recent investments of over $550 million in 12 children’s museum projects – all types of museums are creating purposefully playful moments in their programming for their visitors.

It's well understood that museums are embracing digital media for play, learning, and collaboration: VR, gaming, and other technology-infused offering. Examples around the world include Melbourne Museum's Digital Learning Lab which uses the immersive environment as a canvas for collaborative projects, the Vienna Clock Museum's escape room game that brings people together to further explore the museum's collection, and the Capture the Museum live team game at the National Galleries of Scotland. All go beyond "being a digital filter" for the museum’s existing collection and promote active participation. While technology encompasses more of life around us and AI continues to offer museums new opportunities for audience engagement, digital intervention in museum experiences (through customised experiences on personal digital devices, for example) might take visitors deeper into their siloes and further away from each other and the physical and social experience. To counterbalance this, museums are combining analogue and digital in hybrid experiences that pair the immersive capabilities of technology with in-person interactions and physical objects, using technology to enhance and enchant, rather than take over.

The new Art and Design Museum in Helsinki, which is still in its design competition phase, has embedded social interaction as a core element of its design brief. The Museum has required that architects consider designing spaces which respond to the brief: “learning through doing… play is integrated into educational programming for all ages, encouraging creativity and curiosity.” The museum wishes to “leverage new technology to create a playful, interactive experience that allows visitors of all ages to participate”.[4]

What role does play serve for audiences?

Post-COVID, audiences are more isolated and segregated than ever: in 2025 the World Health Organisation reported that 1 in 6 people regularly feel lonely[5], with around 80% of Gen Z feeling the impact[6]. In Gallup’s Daily Loneliness Poll report, researchers noted that related to feelings of loneliness, physical well-being has worsened significantly since the pandemic, decreasing people’s chances of being out in the world and in social situations.[7]

Cultural organisations have a powerful role in bringing people together, encouraging dialogue and sparking connections. The Creative Commons Space at Buffalo AKG Art Museum has an ongoing partnership with the Lego Foundation to create a “safe and joyful” environment which encourages visitors to make meaningful connections to “art, ideas and (crucially) each other”.[8] The Bentway in Toronto brought Dominoes to the streets of the city, setting up 8,000 human-sized dominoes over 2.5km in a “joyful act of community-building” through the creation of a living sculpture.  At a time when 43% of Canadians report never seeing their neighbours, this event brought together over 250 local volunteers and thousands of audience members, connecting vital public spaces and the local audiences who treasure them.[9] When visitors become players and active participants, they form personal memories and emotional connections.

The principles of play also go together with those of accessibility. As with play, the lens of accessibility can expand the impact of exhibitions for audiences: through experiences that move past the glass case with multi-sensory and tactile features such as replicas and textured objects, spaces that are designed to be welcoming to people of differing abilities, and the inclusion of alternate ways of engaging with learning. What can be made accessible can be made playful, and vice versa. In Beyond the Visual, hosted by the Henry Moore Foundation, blind and partially sighted artists created and curated the first major contemporary sculpture exhibition to be experienced through multiple senses. Co-curator, Dr. Aaron McPeake, notes that “changes made by institutions to make them more accessible usually benefit everyone.”[10]

Daily tous les jours, the Canadian design collective responsible for the Musical Swings installation which has toured cities around the world, believe that creating joy is a way to rebuild trust between individuals. At this time when individuals are becoming more fractured and disconnected from each other, they suggest that play helps to rebuild trust and make connections across social divides. Daily tous les jours co-founders Mouna Andraos and Melssia Mongiat discuss the importance of informal connections in their book, Strangers Need Strange Moments Together (2025) and a recent interview with GCDN’s podcast, The Three Bells.

If play and joy can rebuild trust, confidence and social cohesion, then cultural organisations have a vital role to play as spaces of collective imagination and renewal.

Why is this important for cultural organisations?

Play is good for business. A positive, joyful experience will almost guarantee that audiences will return more frequently, extend their dwell time, become more loyal and create positive word of mouth and social media engagement. It can also unlock new revenue streams and engage new partners, as The Historic New Orleans Collection demonstrated with its aMason Race, which sold out immediately and brought visitors to multiple museums within the Historic Quarter, engaging with the history of New Orleans in a way that was both educational and entertaining.[11] Diversifying the intent of the cultural activity will help diversify the experience each individual receives, encouraging wider audience attendance and more frequent repeat visits.

Cultural organisations also report that playful exhibits and programs increase creativity amongst staff and deepen their relationship with their communities. This internal creativity leads to greater institutional resilience, helping organisations to collaborate better, adapt faster, and respond to change more meaningfully.

If cultural organisations offer dynamic spaces, which are also welcoming and accessible, they encourage participation and a sense of belonging, cementing their role in the community and helping to position them as a community anchor and a go-to destination.

What are the implications for the museum sector?

Cultural organisations are as much about the experience as they are about their exhibitions and their content. With the current focus on audience growth, revenue generation and building support for the future, organisations will need to continue to think about how to encourage diverse and wide visitation, as well as deeper interaction. The shift from ‘archive’ to ‘social space’ has demonstrated that museums can play a valued and important civic role as a place of convening, of gathering and of encounter.

To do this, museums may need to reconsider the design of spaces to encourage increased interactivity, connection and conversation between visitors, or reconsider the role of Visitor Services to be facilitators of meaningful engagement. Playful museum experiences spark curiosity, start conversations and build connections.

“Play is not just for children; it is a lifelong necessity for emotional, social, and psychological health.”[12]

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References:

[1] https://thinkingmuseum.com/2023/03/02/how-to-lead-playful-museum-programmes/

[2] https://www.aam-us.org/2025/06/20/gen-z-has-entered-the-chat-what-we-want-from-museums/

[3] https://medium.com/@liz.moselle/reset-and-rebuild-designing-experiences-to-strengthen-social-connections-916e4ce52747

[4] https://2030.admuseo.fi/competition

[5] https://www.who.int/news/item/30-06-2025-social-connection-linked-to-improved-heath-and-reduced-risk-of-early-death

[6] https://www.gwi.com/blog/gen-z-loneliness

[7] https://news.gallup.com/poll/651881/daily-loneliness-afflicts-one-five.aspx

[8] https://www.museumnext.com/article/creating-a-playful-space-for-all-at-akg-art-museum/

[9] https://thebentway.ca/event/dominoes/

[10] https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2025/jul/14/please-do-touch-sculpture-exhibition-curated-by-blind-people-to-feature-tactile-works

[11] https://www.museumnext.com/article/exploring-the-power-of-play-in-historic-new-orleans/

[12] https://www.healwithcfte.org/blog/play-mental-health